Intelligence agency calls for a 'heightened state of vigilance' against Russian-aligned hacks

The agency that oversees cybersecurity for the federal government called for a "heightened state of vigilance" against the threat of retaliatory cyber attacks from Russia-aligned hackers on Thursday — just hours after Ottawa promised to give Ukraine four Leopard 2 A4 main battle tanks.

The warning comes as Killnet, a group Canada and its allies list as a "Russian-aligned cybercrime group," vows to go after countries that support Ukraine.

A spokesperson for the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) said the agency "is aware of reporting regarding an increase in Russian state-aligned hacktivist groups seeking to compromise or disrupt Ukrainian-aligned allies, in response to their continued support of the government of Ukraine."

"The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, part of the CSE, is reminding the Canadian cyber security community — especially critical infrastructure and defence industry network defenders — to adopt a heightened state of vigilance and to bolster their awareness of and protection against malicious cyber threats," said CSE spokesperson Evan Koronewski.

Koronewski said that, so far, CSE has not seen any spike in attacks against the government of Canada.

Reuters reported earlier this week that Killnet ran a denial-of-service (DDoS) campaign against several German websites to knock them offline Wednesday after that country announced it would be sending tanks to Ukraine.  

Germany's security agency BSI said some financial sector targets were also affected but the hits had little effect. 

The company Cado Security reported that during a scan of Telegram channels associated with Russian-language hacktivists, it found several posts encouraging cyber retaliation against Germany — including the hashtag "#GermanyRIP." It said the messages and hashtag were first spotted on Killnet group's channel.

Killnet also claimed responsibility for a DDoS attack against the Lithuanian government after the Baltic country blocked the flow of goods to the Russian region of Kaliningrad, and for a DDoS strike on a U.S. airport in March 2022.

Kremlin denies knowing Killnet 

Moscow has denied that it carries out hacking operations.

"We are not aware of what [Killnet] is. We honestly wonder why any group of hackers is associated with Russia and not with some other European country," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters during a routine briefing on Wednesday.

Defence Minister Anita Anand announced Thursday that Canada will supply Ukraine with four Leopard 2 A4 main battle tanks and Canadian Armed Forces trainers to teach Ukrainian soldiers how to operate the vehicles.

The pledge comes after weeks of Ukraine asking its allies to supply it with up to 300 German-made Leopard 2 battle tanks. Several allies have those tanks in their inventories but were unable to donate them until Germany approved them for export.

On Wednesday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that his country would provide Ukraine with 14 Leopard 2 tanks from its own military. On that same day, U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters in Washington that the United States will send 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine.

In the face of denial-of-service campaigns, CSE is recommending Canadians organizations review perimeter network systems to determine if any suspicious activity has occurred, implement preventative measure and report any incidents to the cyber centre.