Security News > 2023 > October > Canada goosed as attackers shutter hospitals and China deepfakes its politicians

Cybercriminals have Canada in the crosshairs, with five Ontario hospitals and a fresh Spamoflague disinformation campaign targeting "Dozens" of Canadian government officials, including the PM. The cyberattack against five southern Ontario hospitals has shut down IT systems, forcing them to cancel patient appointments over "The next few days," according to service provider TransForm.

On Monday, the services org posted an alert saying that its member hospitals and Windsor-Essex Hospice were experiencing a systems outage, which included email.

Later that same day, TransForm provided an update on the hospitals' technical issues, and said it "Determined that our member hospitals are experiencing a cyberattack." The intrusion, was affecting patient care "In various ways," according to Transform and the five member hospitals, which all posted the same alert on their websites.

Spamouflage trolls PMs. Meanwhile, also on Monday the Canadian government a disinformation campaign dubbed Spamouflage, apparently connected to the People's Republic of China, has been spamming government officials' Facebook and X accounts since early August.

The government said "Thousands of comments" in English and French on Canadian Members of Parliaments' Facebook and X accounts.

"These spam comments claimed that a critic of the Chinese Communist Party in Canada had accused the various MPs of criminal and ethical violations," the government statement said.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/10/25/canadian_hospitals_spamoflague/