Canada Has ‘High Confidence’ Russia Is Behind Hacking Attempts

(Bloomberg) -- The Canadian government has joined other countries in condemning Russian “malicious cyber-operations,” saying it’s confident the country’s military is behind a series of hacks.

The Russian hacks were part of a broader pattern of activities by Moscow that flout international law, Global Affairs Canada said in a statement Thursday.

“Today, Canada joins its allies in identifying and exposing a series of malicious cyber-operations by the Russian military,” the department’s media relations office said. The operations “underscore the Russian government’s disregard for the rules-based international order, international law and established norms.”

After a chemical attack earlier this year in Salisbury, U.K. hackers tried to gain access to networks of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the department said, adding has “high confidence” Russia’s military intelligence arm, the GRU, was behind it.

In 2016, the World Anti-Doping Agency revealed a hacking group had stolen and released confidential data. In the same year , the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport was also attacked by malware. Canada has “high confidence” the GRU was behind both attacks, according to Thursday’s statement.

To contact the reporter on this story: Josh Wingrove in Ottawa at jwingrove4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Theophilos Argitis at targitis@bloomberg.net, Chris Fournier, Greg Quinn

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