The Canadian Center for Cyber ​​Security (Cyber ​​Centre), part of the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSE), recently released its National Cyber ​​Threat Assessment 2025-2026 (NCTA 2025-2026).
NCTA 2025-2026 claims to “provide the Canadian public with current CSE information about state and non-state cyber threat actors conducting malicious cyber threat activities against Canada and how we assess the cyber threat landscape will evolve over the next two years” . The Canadian Cyber ​​Security Center (Cyber ​​​​Centre) is Canada’s technical authority on cyber security and part of the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSE).
The report, the last edition of which was published two years ago, comes amid a growing diplomatic row between the two countries. India-Canada relations are at an all-time low after the Prime Minister Justin Trudeauhis allegations last September of “potential” involvement of Indian agents in Khalistan extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjarkill. The Indian government dismissed Trudeau’s allegations as “absurd”.

India is named in the cyber threat report for the first time

It is the first time Canada has named India in a cyber threat adversary list, suggesting state-sponsored actors may be spying on it. Incidentally, there was no mention of India in the 2018, 2020 and 2023-24 National Cyber ​​Threat Assessment Reports.

What the threat report says about India

The report names India among five countries it calls “state-sponsored actors” likely involved in cyber espionage against Canada. India ranks fifth in this list, the other four being: China, Russia, Iran and North Korea; ranked in the same order.
“India’s leadership almost certainly aspires to build a modernized cyber program with domestic cyber capabilities. India is very likely using its cyber program to advance its national security imperatives, including espionage, counter-terrorism, and the country’s efforts to promote its global standing and counter narratives against India and the Indian government,” the assessment report said.
“We assess that India’s cyber program is likely using commercial cyber providers to enhance its operations. We assess that Indian state-sponsored cyber threat actors are likely conducting cyber threat activities against Government of Canada networks for espionage purposes,” it further said.
“We believe that formal bilateral relations between Canada and India are very likely to foster Indian state-sponsored cyber threat activities against Canada,” it claims.

Government of India on Canadian cyber threat report

India has criticized Canada for naming it on the list of countries considered “adversaries” of cyber threats, describing the “classification” as another example of the Canadian strategy to “attack” the country. External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said, “Canada has put India in a different category. This classification is according to the cyber report they issued. It seems to be another example of Canadian strategy to attack India”. While rejecting India being included in this category, the MEA spokesperson said, “First you are stating absurd and baseless things and then leveling such an allegation against us. This is absolutely not right.”