Canadian federal police says they were targeted by cyberattack

By Kanishka Singh

(Reuters) - Canadian federal police said on Friday their systems were targeted by an "alarming" cyberattack but there was no impact on operations and no known threat to the safety of Canadians.

"The situation is evolving quickly but at this time, there is no impact on RCMP operations and no known threat to the safety and security of Canadians," a spokesperson for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told reporters on Friday afternoon.

"While a breach of this magnitude is alarming, the quick work and mitigation strategies put in place demonstrate the significant steps the RCMP has taken to detect and prevent these types of threats," the spokesperson added.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said they launched a probe into the attack and were trying to determine the extent of the breach, adding there were no known impacts on intelligence services.

Further details were not immediately known.

The Canadian government said late last month that its foreign affairs department had suffered a data breach and that there had been unauthorized access to personal information of users including employees.

Global Affairs Canada said at the time it had activated an unplanned IT outage on Jan. 24 to "address the discovery of malicious cyber activity."

Canadian Defence Minister Anita Anand said last year that the country's critical infrastructure was increasingly being targeted by cyberattacks, posing a significant threat to the economy of the world's fourth-largest crude oil producer.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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