Communications Security Establishment Canada releases 2025 update to report on cyber threats to Canada’s democratic process  

From: Communications Security Establishment Canada

News release

Ottawa, Ontario – March 6, 2025

The Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSE) has released an update on the cyber threats facing Canada's democratic process. This 2025 report highlights the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) by foreign adversaries to target elections worldwide, including in Canada.

The Cyber Threats to Canada’s Democratic Process: 2025 Update indicates that AI technologies have become more powerful and accessible over the last two years. CSE and its Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (Cyber Centre) assess that these technologies are being used by foreign actors to create and spread disinformation, harass politicians, and enhance cyber espionage and malicious cyber activities.

The report outlines the following key findings:

  • Foreign actors, particularly those affiliated with Russia and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), are leveraging AI to sow division and distrust within democratic societies.
  • Hostile foreign actors are using AI to flood the information environment with false information, including by enabling the creation of disinformation and of social botnets to spread it.
  • Foreign actors are increasingly using generative AI to create and spread viral disinformation with the potential for greater impact as these methods evolve and become even more accessible.
  • Cybercriminals and state-sponsored actors will likely use AI to enhance social engineering attacks against political figures and electoral institutions in the near future.
  • Nation states are collecting massive amounts of data and are using AI to analyze it faster than ever, further enhancing their ability to conduct targeted influence and espionage campaigns.
  • AI is being used to create deepfake pornography targeting politicians and public figures, predominantly women and 2SLGBTQI+ people.

We assess that the PRC, Russia, and Iran will very likely use AI tools to attempt to interfere with Canada’s 2025 federal election, including to support disinformation campaigns and hack-and-leak operations. Additionally, cybercriminals may exploit election-related opportunities to conduct scams and fraud. Canadian politicians and political parties are at heightened risk of being targeted by cyber threat actors, particularly through phishing attempts.

Despite these threats, we judge that it is very unlikely that AI-enabled activities will fundamentally undermine the integrity of Canada's next general election. CSE is working closely with federal partners to ensure the security of our democratic processes and defend our elections from cyber threats. Our Get Cyber Safe campaign will continue to provide advice and guidance to all Canadians to help them stay safe online.

Quotes

“As we highlight in this report, the rise of AI-enabled cyber threats poses significant challenges to our democratic process. However, we are not defenseless. The strength of our democracy lies in our collective efforts. From government officials and cyber security experts to political parties and citizens, each of us plays a crucial role. CSE stands ready to conduct foreign cyber operations to defend our country against hostile threats, if needed. At the same time, Canadians can help safeguard democracy by thinking critically about the information they see online. Together, we can ensure that our elections remain free, fair and secure.”

- Caroline Xavier, Chief, Communications Security Establishment Canada

"Artificial intelligence is transforming the cyber threat landscape, creating new risks alongside its many benefits. Malicious actors are increasingly leveraging AI to enhance the scale and sophistication of their activities—including those that threaten our democratic institutions. The Cyber Centre is committed to safeguarding Canada’s elections by providing expert advice, guidance and services to counter these emerging threats. We will continue working with our partners, including Elections Canada, to strengthen our country’s cyber resilience and protect our democratic processes."

- Rajiv Gupta, Head, Canadian Centre for Cyber Security

Quick facts

  • This assessment considers cyber threat activity and cyber-enabled influence campaigns, which use generative AI to influence opinions and behaviours.

  • AI refers to technologies that demonstrate behaviours normally associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning and problem-solving.

  • Hostile foreign actors used AI to target 27% of elections worldwide held between 2023 to 2024.

  • Of 151 global elections between 2023 and 2024, there were 60 reported AI-generated synthetic disinformation campaigns and 34 known and likely cases of AI-enabled social botnets.

  • The majority of attributed AI-enabled cyber threat activity emanates from state-sponsored actors with links to Russia, the PRC, and Iran.

  • CSE helps to protect Canada’s democratic process by:

    • providing foreign signals intelligence to Government of Canada decision makers about the intentions, capabilities and activities of foreign-based threat actors.
    • defending Canada’s federal elections infrastructure from malicious cyber activity.
    • proactively helping democratic institutions improve their cyber security.
    • sharing unclassified threat assessments with the public.
    • sharing information to help Canadians identify disinformation.

  • The report addresses several topics related to AI:

    • Machine learning: A subset of AI that allows machines to learn how to complete a task from given data without explicitly programming a step-by-step solution.
    • Generative AI: A subset of machine learning that can generate new content (text, images, audio, video, etc.) based on large datasets fed into the model.
    • Large language models (LLMs): A type of generative AI that can create human-like language on a given topic from user prompts.

  • CSE is authorized by the Minister of National Defence to conduct defensive cyber operations (DCO) to protect the Government of Canada, including Elections Canada. This authorization allows CSE to disrupt malicious cyber activities against those systems. CSE is also authorized to protect systems of importance to the government, such as those related to a general election.

  • CSE is a member of the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections task force (along with CSIS, Global Affairs Canada, and the RCMP) which monitors and addresses threats to the democratic process.

  • CSE’s Cyber Centre continues to raise awareness of evolving cyber threats and to promote cyber security best practices through advice and guidance to all major political parties and briefings to Elections Canada, provincial and territorial election bodies, the media, government partners, and more.

Associated links

Contacts

For more information, please contact (media only):

Media relations
Communications Security Establishment
Email: media@cse-cst.gc.ca

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