Cyber attacks on Canadian institutions claimed by Indian hacking groups continue. After Ottawa Hospital Tuesdayit was the turn of the Canadian Armed Forces and Elections Canada to be targeted on Wednesday.
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The “Indian Cyber Force” group during the day claimed to have succeeded in making the Armed Forces website inaccessible, in a message broadcast on the X platform (formerly Twitter).
An hour later, the Canadian Armed Forces website was found to still be inaccessible Newspaper. The situation returned to normal in the afternoon.
“Separate and isolated networks”
In a written statement sent to our Bureau of Investigation, the Canadian Armed Forces indicated that they were “aware of the situation” involving their website, and that an investigation had been launched.
“Because the website in question is on a separate network and isolated from our main network, we have no indication of impact to our systems,” the federal organization said.
Elections Canada
“Indian Cyber Force” also claimed responsibility on Wednesday for an attack on the civic education site Electionsetdemocratie.ca, owned by Elections Canada.
The organization responsible for the federal election confirmed via email to Newspaper that the website, hosted by an external provider, “was subjected to a short-lived denial of service attack.”
However, he assured that “no sensitive information or data is stored on the Electionsetdemocratie site”, and that the organization’s main platform, Election.ca, was not affected.
Tension
On Tuesday, we reported that the Ottawa Hospital website experienced a brief service disruption following this attack by a pro-India group, which was confirmed by health agencies.
The hackers also claimed attacks on other Canadian companies’ websites.
These incidents come amid tensions between Ottawa and New Delhi, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly suggested that India may have been involved in the murder of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, which occurred in British Columbia last June.