Sami Khoury, head of Canada’s cyber agency, starts new role in government

Sami Khoury, the head of the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS), is leaving the agency to start a new role as the Canadian government’s senior official for cybersecurity.

Khoury, who has spent more than three decades at the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), Canada’s cyber and signals intelligence agency — joining as a research engineer in 1992 —  announced the move on LinkedIn on Tuesday.

Having led the CCCS since August 2021, Khoury’s post described “the last 1114 days” as “nothing short of remarkable” and praised his “amazing team, dedicated to making a difference and always pushing the envelope developing world class cyber capabilities.”

He wrote about the CCCS dealing “with many incidents, some with devastating impacts on communities,” and had previously told Recorded Future News about an incident in which pro-Russian hacktivists, allegedly communicating with Russian intelligence officials, claimed they could cause physical damage to a Canadian oil pipeline.

“The important thing is that we learned from it, the important thing is that there was no physical damage done, and it’s a call to action for the critical infrastructure sector to heed our advice and talk to us about how we work with them to make their systems more resilient,” Khoury said at the time.

Within just the last year, the CCCS has responded to numerous incidents, including a suspected state-sponsored hack of government systems in British Columbia, Canada’s westernmost province, is believed to have affected 22 email inboxes containing sensitive information about 19 people.

Back in February, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) announced it was investigating an “alarming” cyberattack that targeted its networks.

That followed  Canada’s foreign ministry discovering “malicious cyber activity” on its network that allowed hackers access to personal information. It is not known whether this was a criminal or state-sponsored breach.

A previous and separate incident saw data on current and former members of the country’s armed forces and the RCMP was compromised after a contractor providing relocation services for government personnel was hacked.

In his post on LinkedIn, Khoury said he was looking forward to staying active in the cybersecurity space and adding his voice to”to that of others who continue to promote a strong and resilient cyber agenda.”