Allied Intelligence — 2026-07-09

CSE Annual Report Discloses 2,561 Cyber Incidents Handled and 3,385 Foreign Intelligence Reports Produced in 2024-2025

BLUFCritical infrastructure's emergence as CSE's dominant incident category, now exceeding federal systems, signals that Canada's cyber threat surface is expanding faster than defensive capacity can consolidate.

Communications Security Establishment Canada's unclassified Annual Report for 2024-2025, covering April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025, states the Cyber Centre responded to 2,561 cyber security incidents, split between 1,155 affecting federal institutions and 1,406 involving critical infrastructure partners 12. CSE reported producing 3,385 foreign intelligence reports for 32 client departments and 3,016 individual clients during the period 12. The agency issued 336 pre-ransomware notifications to more than 300 Canadian organizations, which it estimated averted 74 to 148 ransomware incidents for economic savings of $6 million to $18 million 123. CSE reported a workforce of 3,841 full-time permanent employees, a 6 percent increase from 3,529 the prior year, and total authorities exceeding $1 billion for the year 123.

Analysis
CSE's incident and reporting volumes point to genuine scaling of Canada's cyber and signals apparatus rather than steady-state activity, with critical infrastructure now drawing more incident response than federal systems and workforce growth outpacing historical hiring. The subsequent 2025-2026 report shows incident volume climbing a further 25 percent, from 2,561 to 3,216, confirming demand-driven rather than organizational expansion. The critical-infrastructure incident share may instead reflect improved detection and reporting uptake among partners rather than a genuine rise in adversary targeting. Sourcing rests entirely on CSE's own report and the accompanying government release, with secondary outlets merely republishing the same figures, leaving the assessment without independent cross-source corroboration.
4 sources
  1. Communications Security Establishment Canada Annual Report 2024-2025
  2. Communications Security Establishment Canada releases annual report for 2024 to 2025 - Government of Canada
  3. Canada spy agency report highlights hacking threats, foreign interference, extremism - Prism News
  4. Communications Security Establishment Canada releases 2024-25 annual report - Law360 Canada

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UNCLASSIFIED // OPEN SOURCE