Canada’s national police suffered a cyberattack on Friday of “alarming” magnitude, according to the agency.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is now launching a criminal investigation into what happened and how its systems could have been breached, the agency said in a statement to ABC News.
There is no known impact on safety and security operations, RCMP says.
In this Aug. 8, 2023, file photo, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) vehicle is seen in La Ronge, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE
“While a breach of this magnitude is alarming, the quick work and mitigation strategies put in place demonstrate the important steps the RCMP has taken to detect and prevent these types of threats,” according to the statement.
The RCMP says it is working with other Canadian government partners to continue to “assess the breadth and scope of the security breach and hold those responsible accountable.”
The news comes as experts warn of the dangers of cyberattacks on critical infrastructure and government operations. The Canadian government’s global affairs office was the subject of a prolonged security breach last month due to “malicious” cyber activity that affected the agency’s internal staff data, according to the CBC.
The US Department of Justice also said last month that it had successfully thwarted an effort by Chinese government-sponsored hackers to attack critical US infrastructure networks using malware.