China, Russia Will 'Very Likely' Use AI to Target Canadian Voters: Intelligence Agency
Canada's cyber intelligence agency is warning that countries including China, Russia and Iran will "very likely" lean on artificial intelligence (AI) to try and interfere in the upcoming federal election. In a report assessing threats to Canada's democratic process in the upcoming year, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) said those known hostile actors are looking to use AI to fuel disinformation campaigns or launch hacking operations.
The 28-page document suggests the threats are real and evolving, but CSE does stress that it believes it's "very unlikely" that AI-enabled activities will "fundamentally undermine the integrity of Canada's next general election." However, the agency warns that foreign actors could use generative AI to engage with targets as part of an extended phishing operation to breach their networks.
Generative AI: The Power and the Peril
Generative AI is the technology powering popular tools like ChatGPT that are trained on huge amounts of data to generate a response to a wide range of requests from a user. This rapidly evolving technology can create text, images, computer code, music or video, and others can quickly sort and analyze data. However, not all generative AI tools have applied strict guardrails for their use.
Canadian politicians and political parties are at heightened risk of being targeted by cyber threat actors, particularly through phishing attempts. Generative AI can be instructed to create an account on social media, log in and start posting all on its own — allowing for misinformation to spread at an industrial scale. "A human doesn't even need to create that account," said Bridget Walshe, the associate head of the CSE's Canadian Centre for Cyber Security.
The Threat is Real
There are already signs foreign states are meddling in Canadian politics. Last month, a task force set up to monitor foreign election interference reported that Liberal leadership candidate Chrystia Freeland was targeted by a disinformation campaign. The Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force (SITE) said it detected "co-ordinated and malicious activity" targeting Freeland that was traced to an anonymous but popular news account on the popular social media platform WeChat.
The government task force said the account has been linked to the People's Republic of China. CSE says Canadian politicians and political parties are likely to be targeted by threat actors seeking to conduct hack-and-leak operations, where stolen information is put online to cause harm or embarrassment.
The Consequences
Canadian political parties hold terabytes of politically relevant data about Canadian voters as do commercial data brokers. That data can be harnessed to run targeted personal influence or espionage campaigns, says CSE, which is responsible for monitoring foreign signals intelligence and is the lead on Canada's cyber operations.
A Chances of an Early Election
CSE does say it's unlikely that hostile actors will carry out a destructive cyberattack against election infrastructure, such as attempting to paralyze telecommunications or transportation systems. However, there is a chance an election is called before Parliament returns, depending on the outcome of Sunday's Liberal leadership convention.
The Future of Democracy
The warning from CSE echoes those early warnings and points to the troubling trend of deepfake pornography. "Canadian public figures, especially women and members of the 2SLGBTQI+ community, are at heightened risk," said the report, which could "deter participation in democracy for those targeted."