Vanguard Magazine

Vanguard Feb Mar 2019

Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR

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46 FEBRUARY/MARCH 2019 www.vanguardcanada.com the last WORD Dome and UK's Lloyds Register (LR) in 2017, in order to develop a set of stan- dards and guidelines for maritime cyber defence. While the standards continue to be developed, both organizations report significant progress during the pilot test- ing phases. In Canada, the focus of late has been on the use of foreign materials in the building of and upgrades to Canadian military vessels. CBC released a report last year indicating that François-Philippe Champagne, who was international trade minister at the time, had made an official inquiry to the Department of National Defence. Mr. Champagne who was en- gaged in the NAFTA negotiations with the U.S. Government indicated that the Americans were becoming increasingly concerned with the involvement of Chi- nese companies in the defence and high- tech sectors in Canada. Those working within the cybersecurity sector have also been quite vocal around Chinese affiliations, especially in regard to Chinese telecom giant Huawei. On the manufacturing side, in the Information Note prepared for Minister Harjit Sajjan, procurement officials indicated that while many materials require offshore sourcing only 17 per cent of the naval vessels con- tained Chinese steel. In 2013, naval engineer Qing Quentin Huang who worked for Lloyd's Register, a subcontractor of Irving Shipbuilding Inc., was arrested in Burlington, Ontario and accused of trying to spy for China on Canadian shipbuilding plans. Huang was charged under the Security of Informa- tion Act with attempting to communicate secret information to a foreign power. Mr. Huang, who remains on bail and continues to profess innocence, is asking for the charges to be dismissed as the fed- eral government continues to challenge the questions around disclosure of sensi- tive government intelligence. Prosecutors contend that virtually all of the redactions were covered by a section of the Canada Evidence Act that allows the government to shield information from disclosure due to national security concerns. With ten- sions increasingly elevated after the de- tainment of Huawei's Chief Financial Of- ficer, the relationship between China and Canada – as it pertains to national secu- rity, technology and innovation – remains uncertain moving forward. From an innovation and manufacturing perspective, we are seeing an increased focus on security as it relates to the next generation of military vessel. Ken Han- sen, an independent defence and security analyst and owner of Hansen Maritime Horizons, recently wrote an article for Macleans magazine in which he stated that the Canadian military and shipbuild- ing industry were at a crossroads since the status quo of ship designs would no longer comply with the growing use of technology and innovation in targeted military attacks. In other words, a ship's cyber "firepower" was becoming just as important as the other weapons housed. With that change in strategy comes the reality that this will impact design, tech- nology requirements, and skills required to operate these new breeds of ships. The U.S. Inspector General's office released a report indicating that, over- all, the Pentagon was not taking basic cybersecurity steps to protect its ballis- tic missile system. Although the Penta- gon's weapons are worth roughly $1.66 trillion, the October report found that "nearly all" American missiles, jets, ships and lethal equipment in development are vulnerable to cyberattacks. As a result, the Navy is now looking at three areas of research to help bolster future cyber readiness. They include Deception Tac- tics, Dynamic Configuration and Arti- ficial Intelligence. These studies will be carried out with both academic and pri- vate sector partners. As the landscape of the global naval defence sector continues to evolve and change, Canada should – and must – watch, learn and adapt to what others are doing to address the cyber threats of the future. The concept of "secure by design" must be embraced in all stages of design and deployment moving forward. As Principal of Human Firewall Solu- tions, a Toronto based market advisory and development firm and Founder-Chair of the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance (CATA) Cyber Council, Kather- ine Thompson leads a national team of globally recognized cyber security experts focused on helping Canadian organiza- tions better understand, secure and capi- talize in the global digital marketplace. Katherine sits as a board member of the CATA Public Safety Advisory Board and Cyber Titan, a collaborative with the US Air Force's Cyber Patriot program which seeks to engage young Canadians in a career in cybersecurity and other science, technology, engineering and math areas. She is also currently involved in the creation of a national program providing military veterans with a second career in cyberse- curity. She has also been appointed Execu- tive Director of the Canadian Cyber Security Innovation Institute (C2I2), a collaboration with Carleton University. As the landscape of the global naval defence sector continues to evolve and change, Canada should – and must – watch, learn and adapt to what others are doing to address the cyber threats of the future. The concept of "secure by design" must be embraced in all stages of design and deployment moving forward.

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