Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s official website was taken down for a brief period on Tuesday, and he suggests Russia may have been behind it.
The site was taken offline as Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal visited Toronto for an official bilateral meeting and an announcement of more support in the war with Russia.
“Russia being able to bring down an official Government of Canada webpage for a few hours is in no way going to dissuade us from our unshakable support of Ukraine,” Trudeau said.
It wasn’t a long outage of the website, but Trudeau says the timing isn’t lost on him. He points out that Russian hackers tend to target countries when they are hosting Ukrainian officials.
“For Russian hackers to target countries as they are showing their steadfast support for Ukraine as they’re welcoming Ukrainian delegations or leadership to visit so, the timing isn’t surprising,” he explained.
The website is now back online, and Canada’s cyber security agency, the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE), says attacks like this get attention but have little impact on the affected systems.
Meanwhile, Trudeau used his meeting with Shmyhal to announce new sanctions on Russian and Belarussian officials, a modernization of the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement, and new military supports of around 21,000 assault rifles, dozens of machine guns, and more than two million rounds of ammunition.
SOURCE: CITYNEWS