Canada targeted by same Chinese hackers the U.S., U.K. accuse of cyberespionage that hit millions

Canada's electronic intelligence agency says the same hacking group that the U.K. and the U.S. have accused of a widespread cyberespionage campaign tied to Beijing has also targeted Canada.

U.S. and British officials on Monday imposed sanctions, filed charges and accused China's government of involvement in the cyber attacks that hit millions of people including lawmakers, journalists, academics and defence contractors.

Authorities on both sides of the Atlantic call the hacking group that is allegedly involved Advanced Persistent Threat 31 or «APT31.» The U.K. and U.S. allege that the group is an arm of China's Ministry of State Security.

The Communications Security Establishment (CSE) — the agency responsible for foreign signals intelligence, cyber operations and cyber security — confirmed that APT31 also targeted Canada.

«The Cyber Centre generally does not comment on specific cyber security incidents, however, we can confirm that we have seen malicious activity by this same threat actor targeting Canada,» said CSE spokesperson Nayeli Sosa in a statement to CBC News.

No further information has been provided by CSE about the timeframe or details of the malicious activity the agency said it detected.

Canadian Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Tuesday he was part of a Five Eyes meeting Monday night that included the U.S. secretary for Homeland Security and British home secretary. The Five Eyes is an intelligence sharing network made up of the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

LeBlanc said no country is immune to threats of cyber attacks.

«We continue to work as a group of Five Eyes countries in terms of building up the resilience for critical infrastructure,» he said.

«China is certainly one of the