Canada names India in cyberthreat list, accuses it of 'likely' spying

Ottawa: Canada has for the first time named India in a list of cyberthreat adversaries, suggesting that state-sponsored actors could be spying against it.

Amid an ongoing diplomatic row, India is named fifth after China, Russia, Iran and North Korea in the National Cyber Threat Assessment 2025-2026 (NCTA 2025-2026) report.

“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 development comes as the bilateral relationship has gone south since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said a year ago that Canada had credible evidence that agents of the Indian government were involved in the murder of Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia in June 2023, a charge dismissed as absurd by India.

The NCTA 2025-2026 that highlights the cyber threats facing individuals and organisations in Canada was released on October 30 by the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (Cyber Centre), which is Canada’s technical authority on cyber security, and part of the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSE).

While there was no mention of India in the National Cyber Threat Assessment reports of 2018, 2020 and 2023-24, the 2025-26 assessment mentions India – along with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea -- in the 'Cyber threat from state adversaries' section that introduces the state cyber threat ecosystem and discusses the cyber threats to Canada.

“India’s leadership almost certainly aspires to build a modernised cyber programme with domestic cyber capabilities. India very likely uses its cyber programme to advance its national security imperatives, including espionage, counterterrorism, and the country’s efforts to promote its global status and counter narratives against India and the Indian government,” the assessment report said.

“We assess that India’s cyber programme likely leverages commercial cyber vendors to enhance its operations. We assess that Indian state-sponsored cyber threat actors likely conduct cyber threat activity against Government of Canada networks for the purpose of espionage,” it said further.

“We judge that official bilateral relations between Canada and India will very likely drive Indian state-sponsored cyber threat activity against Canada,” it claimed.

CSE and its partners in Canada and across the Five Eyes are attuned to the cyber threats to Canada from state and nonstate cyber threat actors and are tracking them as they evolve, the report said.

NCTA 2025-2026 provides the Canadian public with CSE’s current insights on the state and non-state cyber threat actors conducting malicious cyber threat activity against Canada and how we assess the cyber threat landscape will evolve in the next two years, it added.