Cyber spy agency targeted foreign extremists trying to recruit Canadians: report

Canada's electronic spy agency says it's used its arsenal to try and stop foreign extremists from recruiting Canadians and sharing violent material online. 

The acknowledgement is nestled in the Communications Security Establishment's annual report made public Tuesday, which points to recent cases where it flexed its cyber muscles.

While the details are largely sanitized in the report, the examples shed some light on how the foreign signals intelligence agency has been using the "active" cyber capabilities granted to it by the Liberal government in 2019. 

CSE has both defensive capabilities and what are called "active" capabilities — which allow it  to disrupt foreign online threats to Canada's system.

In its Tuesday report, CSE said it has used its active cyber operations capabilities to disrupt the efforts of foreign-based extremists to "recruit Canadian nationals, operate online and disseminate violent extremist material."

"I can't speak to the specific details of the operation, I can say that CSE in our foreign intelligence program and in our cyber program, are concerned with extremism of any sort, whether religious or ideologically motivated," Dan Rogers, associate chief at the agency, told CBC News. 

"If violent extremist organizations were trying to use an online platform to recruit Canadians or to disseminate material online, preventing that from working as intended would be an element of disruption that we would engage in under the foreign cyber operations mandate."

The annual report also said it has triggered those active powers to assist the Canadian Armed Forces in support of "their mission," although few other details are provided. 

The agency has said it has supported the military in Ukraine and Eastern Europe as well as its missions in Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon.

As previously reported, CSE has also acknowledged that it has used its cyber operations on cyber-criminals "to impose a cost on the people behind these kinds of incidents."

"CSE has embarked on a long-term campaign designed to reduce the ability of cyber-crime groups to target Canadians, Canadian businesses and institutions," reads the annual report

Rogers said that campaign is "starting to have an effect."

CSE said it expects to run more long-term operations now that the Liberals have pledged millions of dollars to the agency in this year's budget.

Rogers said before that, they conducted those activities by reallocating internal resources.