New Delhi: There has been no love lost between India and Canada ever since Justin Trudeau accused New Delhi of being involved in the plot to kill Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil.
Bilateral relations have gone from bad to worse as India steadfastly denied the allegations and the Canadian Prime Minister admitted that his claim was based on intel reports and not hard evidence.
Now, in a move that is sure to irk the Narendra Modi government further, Canada has categorised India as a “state adversary” along with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.
In its annual threat report published by the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, the Trudeau administration has accused India of building ‘cyber programmes’ that threaten Canada.
“Countries that aspire to become new centres of power within the global system, such as India, are building cyber programmes that present varying levels of threat to Canada,” the report said.
Stating that Canada is preparing for what it claims to be state-sponsored hacking and cyber-espionage attempts, the report says: “We judge that official bilateral relations between Canada and India will very likely drive Indian state-sponsored cyber threat activity against Canada.”
Canada also flagged espionage concerns.
“While emerging states focus their cyber efforts on domestic threats and regional rivals, they also use their cyber capabilities to track and surveil activists and dissidents living abroad. We assess that Indian state-sponsored cyber threat actors likely conduct cyber threat activity against Government of Canada networks for the purpose of espionage,” the report said.
The report identified China as the most active state cyber threat to Canada.
“The PRC’s (People’s Republic of China) expansive and aggressive cyber programme presents the most sophisticated and active state cyber threat to Canada today,” the report mentioned.
