Canada is warning that its critical infrastructure is under growing and urgent pressure from both nation-state and criminal cyber groups. Attacks on sectors such as energy, water, healthcare, finance and transportation are becoming more frequent and more complex, with criminals leaning on tools like ransomware-as-a-service and artificial intelligence to increase the scale and precision of their extortion. Officials stress that successful intrusions can do far more than disrupt a website or a single company: they can trigger cascading outages, damage public trust, harm the environment and cause significant economic losses. State-aligned actors are described as quietly positioning themselves inside networks so they can disrupt or destroy critical services during future crises or conflicts.

Alongside this strategic threat, everyday criminal activity continues to probe and exploit weaknesses for financial gain, political or ideological impact, or even personal revenge by disgruntled insiders. The picture that emerges is a blended threat landscape where nation-state operators and profit-driven gangs often use similar techniques, share tools, and sometimes even cooperate. In response, Canada is urging operators of critical infrastructure to harden their defenses, improve detection and response capabilities and treat cyber risk as a direct physical and societal risk, not just an IT problem. This includes closer coordination between government, regulators and private operators so that intelligence on emerging threats can be quickly turned into concrete protective measures on the ground.

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Source: https://industrialcyber.co/control-device-security/canada-flags-urgent-threat-from-nation-state-and-criminal-groups-to-critical-infrastructure/