Sam Cooper

Canada’s election monitoring agency is warning that foreign powers, led by the People’s Republic of China, are expected to target Canadian politicians and political parties in the coming weeks using increasingly convincing AI-generated cyberattacks—part of a broad set of malign strategies that could be impacting the 2025 federal election.

The warning came Monday from the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force, whose officials detailed how foreign state actors, including China, Russia, and Iran, are likely to use so-called “hack-and-leak” operations, generative AI, and social engineering to undermine confidence in Canada’s democratic process.

“Canadian politicians and political parties are likely to be targeted by threat actors attempting to hack into their systems, steal information, and leak that information,” said an official from the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, a branch of the Communications Security Establishment. “We assess that AI is making social engineering attacks more personalized, pervasive, and harder to detect.”

Officials cited a 2024 U.S. Department of Justice indictment that charged Iranian-linked cyber actors with stealing and leaking campaign material belonging to U.S. political figures, including to rival campaigns. The case, SITE said, was emblematic of an evolving threat model now being deployed globally.

“Increasingly, nation states are incorporating AI into their cyber operations,” SITE warned. “Generative AI tools enable cyber threat actors to create realistic audio and video content impersonating trusted individuals or deepfakes.”

These tools, SITE added, are being used to craft emails that mimic natural human writing, using convincing grammar and tone to fool even seasoned professionals—including campaign staff, journalists, and elected officials.

SITE said that the cyber programs of China, Russia, and Iran represent the greatest strategic cyber threats to Canadian democracy during the current election. Among them, the PRC was flagged as the most persistent in targeting Canadian political figures, public officials, and institutions.

“The PRC regularly targets Canadian government networks and public officials to acquire information that will advance its strategic economic and diplomatic interests,” an official said. “This information is likely also used to support the PRC’s malign influence and interference activities against Canada’s democratic processes.”

SITE linked these activities to broader campaigns of transnational repression. Chinese cyber actors have been publicly tied to operations targeting Uyghur activists in Canada, as well as journalists and dissidents from Hong Kong and Taiwan. The tactics include spyware, phishing campaigns, and digital tracking.

“PRC actors very likely facilitate transnational repression by monitoring and harassing these groups online,” an official added, noting that Beijing has labeled Uyghurs, Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetans, and pro-democracy advocates among its so-called ‘five poisons.’

Russia and pro-Russian non-state actors were described as the most aggressive actors globally over the past two years in targeting elections, using cyberattacks and information warfare to influence outcomes and undermine faith in democratic institutions.

SITE officials emphasized that the task force is actively monitoring signals intelligence, cyber intrusion attempts, and online manipulation in real-time — and will issue public alerts if they identify specific incidents linked to foreign actors.

But the challenge, they said, is that these operations increasingly blend foreign state capabilities with domestic narratives and influencers, making detection and attribution more difficult.

“The environment is rapidly evolving,” the official concluded. “We are asking everyone — from parties to voters — to be vigilant in the face of increasingly deceptive and technologically sophisticated foreign interference.”

Two weeks ago, Canada’s Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force identified a sophisticated PRC information campaign targeting Chinese-language social media in Canada. On March 10 and March 25, the WeChat account Youli-Youmian, linked to Chinese Communist Party propaganda efforts, shared widely amplified posts portraying Mark Carney in a highly favorable light.

One post, titled “The US encounters a ‘tough guy’ Prime Minister,” framed Carney as standing up to Donald Trump’s tariff threats.

At the SITE briefing Monday, The Bureau questioned whether the task force would investigate the Carney campaign’s “ButtonGate” scandal as potential domestic election interference—especially given the operation echoed a PRC disinformation playbook from 2021 that falsely depicted the Conservatives as Trump-style extremists. The question also raised whether SITE had the capacity to examine any crossover between this Liberal narrative and a broader foreign campaign.

A SITE spokesperson replied cautiously: “National security agencies take any attempt to undermine our democracy really seriously… Not all disinformation is foreign-backed… but SITE is committed to informing Canadians when emerging issues can be linked to foreign state actors.”

Alongside its public briefing Monday, the SITE Task Force released a visual guide warning Canadians about how disinformation spreads during elections.

The schematic emphasizes vigilance, encouraging Canadians to scrutinize domain names, design inconsistencies, and suspicious endorsements. It also urges users to verify sources, use fact-checking tools, and avoid sharing unverified content.

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