Canada names India in cyber threat list

Canada has for the first time named India in a list of cyber threat adversaries.

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 report 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).