A Growing Concern

"The most sophisticated cyber threats come from the intelligence and military services of foreign states. In most cases, these attackers are well resourced, patient and persistent. Their purpose is to gain political, economic, commercial or military advantage."
"All technologically advanced governments and private businesses are vulnerable to state sponsored cyber espionage. These attacks have succeeded in stealing industrial and state secrets, private data and other valuable information."
"Terrorists are aware of the potential for using the Western World's dependence on cyber systems as a vulnerability to be exploited."
Briefing memo addressed to deputy minister, Natural Resources Canada

Ottawa Citizen

"I do believe that cyber espionage is on the same plane today, on the same level of national security threat, as is terrorism and the public safety question."
"It's much bigger than we all really knew and understood and now it's starting to emerge more and more."
"The West really had its guard down and we were very much focused on terrorism because that was the issue, and companies as well were not thinking about cyber (security)."
Ray Boisvert, former assistant director, CSIS, currently president, I-Sec Integrated Strategies

The briefing memo reads as though a new discovery has suddenly come to the attention of the intelligence community. Industrial, military and political espionage has been around for a long, long time. It is pervasive, and all countries engage in it, to one degree or another. None, likely as vigorously as the United States or China, but it is a process that the industrialized international community engages in, each in an attempt to purloin advances in technology, production, or political opportunities that others have succeeded with.

The dire warning statements of the former assistant director of CSIS, with his purported insider knowledge, applied now commercially in his own private business venture sounds suspiciously like a vested interest looking to gain a competitive edge, garnering clients to further his own bottom line by instilling a certain sense of cautious hysteria that can be solved by taking advantage of his firm's expert know-how and avoidance.

The five Chinese military officers charged earlier in the week by the United States with stealing trade secrets from U.S. nuclear, steel and clean-energy companies may have another agenda; that of informing Americans that the close scrutiny under which they are held by the NSA has a reason and a purpose, and here it is, front and centre. The Chinese appear flummoxed by the revelations, since it is common enough knowledge that if any country engages in espionage and cyberspying it is the United States that excels at it more than any other.

As for Canada speaking of spooky cyber-espionage, the same Edward Snowden that acted in such a churlish manner by purloining data of huge embarrassment to his government, alerting American allies and enemies alike that they are all being spied upon, also revealed latterly that Canada was doing the same to countries such as Brazil. But, judging from revelations now being aired through a court procedure against SNC Lavalin on bribery charges and general ill-doing, Canadian companies will also engage directly in underhanded bullying of competitors in Spain.

Mr. Boisvert's opinion is that the charges mounted this week by the United States against Chinese officials (naming them 'officials' is hardly clinging to reality; the five appear to be rank amateurs and their connection to the Chinese military seems that of ill-paid civilian would-be-geek hangers-on) has a function in battling state-sponsored cyber-attacks in publicly shaming the countries involved. The United States has certainly of late had its share of embarrassment, and pubic back-lash as well. They're dealing with both.

The issue of terrorists, on the other hand, possibly getting a handle through cleverly sinister manipulation of cyber-crime potentially threatening energy infrastructure systems in Canada, like power grids and oil and gas pipelines, is another matter entirely. That, indeed, may and likely will eventually turn out to be a significant challenge. And that, it seems, is where the primary focus should be. Getting real, it would hardly serve China's purpose to maim Canada's infrastructure since a healthy Canada means a healthy source for investment in energy sources.

As for Edward Snowden, his pledges of nobility in intent were more than significantly tarnished by gravitating toward a country like Russia where graft, corruption, government hostility to human rights and freedoms and bullying and threats toward other countries hardly qualifies it as a place of honourable refuge for a scoundrel who betrayed his country on the claim of a higher moral purpose.