Winnipeg virus lab scientists worked for China

Scientist couple who worked at Winnipeg virology lab shared information with Chinese military and Wuhan Institute, Canadian intelligence documents reveal. 

Lies and scandal: How two rogue scientists at a secret lab triggered a national security calamity | CBC News | Catharine Tunney:

March 2, 2024 - "The release ... of hundreds of documents related to the dismissal of two scientists — Dr. Xiangguo Qiu and her husband Keding Cheng — has pulled back the curtain on an explosive national security probe at the Winnipeg-based National Microbiology Lab, part of the Canadian Science Centre for Human and Animal Health (CSCHAH). The investigation — and the fight to make information about the investigation public — took years.

"According to Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) documents, the agency's National Security Management Division was advised in September 2018 that Qiu had been listed as the inventor on a Chinese patent that might have contained scientific information produced at the CSCHAH in Winnipeg — and that she shared that data without authority.... Qiu, then head of vaccines and antivirals with the CSCHAH's zoonotic diseases and special pathogens division, said she didn't know her name was on the patent.... The National Security Management Division also began an investigation into allegations that Cheng also had breached security policies in relation to students under his supervision.... 

"On July 5, 2019 Qiu and Cheng were told they were subjects of an administrative investigation and ordered to stay home. At that point, their access cards and computer accounts were deactivated. By February 2020, PHAC had determined the couple violated multiple policies by, among other things, shipping antibodies outside of the lab without authorization — including to the China National Institute for Food and Drugs — and failing to monitor restricted visitors who were later accused of removing government property without permission.... Alarmed by the findings, PHAC sent its administrative report to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), which reopened its security assessment of Qiu and Cheng..... 

"The documents show the service's initial assessment of the couple in April 2020 gave them the benefit of the doubt.... But by June of 2020, CSIS felt differently — and was armed with evidence. In a document drafted that month and released this week, CSIS wrote that Qiu was using the level 4 lab in Canada 'as a base to assist China to improve its capability to fight highly-pathogenic pathogens'.... CSIS said Qiu applied to China's Thousand Talents Program for the stated purpose of helping the People's Republic of China build up its infectious disease research. Beijing's Thousand Talents Program was set up to 'boost China's national technological capabilities and may pose a serious threat to research institutions, including government research facilities, by incentivizing economic espionage and theft of intellectual property,' said CSIS in its report.... 

"CSIS said Qiu told 'outright lies'.... The intelligence service also said it believed Cheng was not truthful in his interviews and had worked with a restricted visitor at PHAC 'who is connected to the People's Liberation Army'.... Taking CSIS's findings into consideration, PHAC suspended the couple's security clearances — a condition of their employment — in August of 2020.... Their dismissals were announced in January 2021....

"CBC has made multiple attempts to contact Qiu and Cheng. The Chinese embassy in Ottawa has denied that China stole Canadian information....

"After opposition parties spent years demanding access to government documents about the case, the federal government released hundreds of redacted pages on Wednesday. The government initially opposed releasing the bulk of the information, arguing that it would be detrimental to national security. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he would instead share the documents with the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP), which is made up of MPs who are appointed by the prime minister.... In June 2021, opposition parties voted to declare the Liberal government in contempt of Parliament over its refusal to release the documents. The federal government then took the Speaker of the House of Commons to court to get a judge's confirmation that it has the legal authority to withhold documents requested by members of Parliament sitting on a Commons committee....

"On Thursday, Prime Minister Trudeau and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre traded shots over the case. Poilievre accused Trudeau of allowing China to 'infiltrate' Canada and covering it up by delaying the release of the documents.... Later that day, Trudeau accused Poilievre of weaponizing national security....

"The RCMP says it's still investigating the matter."

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/winnipeg-lab-firing-documents-released-china-1.7130284

Scientists fired from Winnipeg lab shared information with China, documents say | CBC News: The National | February 29, 2024:

RCMP Investigating leaks, not election meddling

Canada's RCMP is not looking into CSIS reports of illegal election interference by the Chinese government recently leaked to the media, but is investigating the leaks as violations of the Security of Information Act.

RCMP investigating media leaks on foreign interference | North Bay Nugget - Catherine Lévesque:

March 6, 2023 - "The RCMP is investigating possible violations of the Security of Information Act associated with recent media leaks about foreign interference in Canada’s elections. The federal police sent out a statement confirming the launch of the investigation on Monday, specifying that the investigation is not focused 'on any one security agency' but provided no other details on the scope of the investigation or when it started.... 'As the RCMP is investigating these incidents, there will be no further comment on this matter at this time,' said Cpl. Kim Chamberland, spokesperson for the RCMP in an email.

"This announcement comes a little over two weeks after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was first asked about top-secret documents viewed by the Globe and Mail about Beijing’s alleged interference and said he expects Canada’s spy agency to take these leaks seriously. 

"Global News also revealed, based on intelligence sources, that Trudeau had allegedly ignored the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) warning that Liberal MP Han Dong was helped by the Chinese consulate during the 2019 election. Trudeau has pushed back against these allegations saying, 'it is not up to unelected security officials to dictate to political parties who can or cannot run'.

"Speaking on Monday evening, Trudeau said the RCMP was not directed by his office nor by his government to look into the media leaks."

Read more: https://www.nugget.ca/news/rcmp-security-violations-media-leaks-foreign-interference

RCMP not investigating 2021 election meddling allegations, MPs told | CBC News - John Paul Tasker:

March 2, 2023 - "While multiple media reports have detailed allegations of foreign interference, including attempts to co-opt candidates, the top bureaucrat at the Department of Public Safety said Wednesday there are no active RCMP investigations underway into the last election. 'I can confirm that the RCMP is not investigating any of allegations that are arising from the last election,' Shawn Tupper, deputy minister at the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, told a committee of MPs studying foreign election inference.

"Jody Thomas, the prime minister's national security adviser, told MPs on the procedure and House affairs committee that she and other officials have routinely briefed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about election interference by China — she called Beijing the 'greatest threat' — and other bad actors... She declined to provide specifics about the interference, saying it would be inappropriate in light of strict national security laws that require secrecy....

"Former CSIS director Richard Fadden told CBC News Network's Power & Politics that he is somewhat surprised at the lack of criminal charges. Fadden said that while CSIS investigations might not provide enough evidence to hit the high bar required for criminal charges, he was surprised the RCMP is not investigating in light of recent media reports alleging foreign interference. 'If everything that was written by your colleagues in the media is taken as accurate, I'm a little bit surprised that there's not something there,' Fadden told host David Cochrane."

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/public-inquiry-chinese-election-interference-1.6764577

CSIS documented Chinese election interference

Documents leaked from Canada's top spy agency, CSIS, indicate that Communist China interfered in the 2021 federal election to back the election of a Liberal minority government.

Report claims China allegedly interfered in Canadian elections | Hindustan Times - Anirudh Bhattacharyya: 

February 19, 2023 - "China may have undertaken an operation to influence the results of the 2021 Federal elections in Canada in favour of the ruling Liberal Party, an expose in Canadian media on Friday claimed. The investigative article by Robert Fife and Steven Chase in the national daily, the Globe and Mail, noted, 'China employed a sophisticated strategy to disrupt Canada’s democracy in the 2021 federal election campaign as Chinese diplomats and their proxies backed the re-election of Justin Trudeau’s Liberals – but only to another minority government – and worked to defeat Conservative politicians considered to be unfriendly to Beijing.'

"The report was based on documents from Canada’s spy agency, Canadian Security Intelligence Service or CSIS. It added that 'the intelligence reports show that Beijing was determined that the Conservatives did not win. China employed disinformation campaigns and proxies connected to Chinese-Canadian organizations in Vancouver and the GTA (Greater Toronto Area), which have large mainland Chinese immigrant communities, to voice opposition to the Conservatives and favour the Trudeau Liberals.'

"A CSIS report cited an unidentified Chinese consulate official as saying, 'The Liberal Party of Canada is becoming the only party that the PRC can support.' However, Beijing also preferred to restrict the Liberal Party Government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to a minority as it 'likes it when the parties in Parliament are fighting with each other, whereas if there is a majority, the party in power can easily implement policies that do not favour the PRC.'

"Among the opposition Conservative Party incumbents targeted in the operation, according to the report, were Kenny Chiu and Alice Wong in British Columbia and Indo-Canadian Bob Saroya in Ontario. Each of them lost in the September 2021 Federal elections, which resulted in the Liberals returning to power with another minority Government, having secured 160 seats as against 119 for the Conservatives.

"Among the MPs targeted was also Jenny Kwan of the New Democratic Party or NDP in British Columbia, though she was re-elected. She told the outlet CBC News, 'They (the Government) cannot try to shield this information just because it may be that it’s the Liberal who will be benefiting, potentially, from these activities.'

"Trudeau said on Monday that he has repeatedly noted that China is trying to interfere in Canadian democracy, including its elections. However, he has consistently maintained, such interference did not impact the results of the Federal polls. However, principal opposition Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre ... told reporters on Friday, 'Justin Trudeau knew about this interference, and he covered it up because he benefited from it.' Poilievre added, 'He’s perfectly happy to let a foreign, authoritarian government interfere in our elections as long as they’re helping him.'"

Read more: https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/report-claims-china-allegedly-interfered-in-canadian-elections-101676727875856.html

Privy Council used its own definition of "emergency" to recommend Emergencies Act

Canda's Emergencies Act explicitly defers to the country's intelligence agancy, CSIS, in determining a 'public order emergency,' and CSIS determined that the Freedom Convoy was not such an emergency. However, the Privy Council used its own definition instead in order to recommend that the Act be invoked. 

Memo advising PM to invoke Emergencies Act admitted its interpretation was 'vulnerable': docs | CBC News - Catharine Tunney:

November 18, 2022 - "The memorandum to the prime minister suggesting the government invoke the Emergencies Act for the first time in Canadian history acknowledged its interpretation of a national security threat could be challenged, the inquiry reviewing that decision heard Friday. The Privy Council Office document — entered into evidence at the Public Order Emergency Commission Friday — was sent on the afternoon of Feb. 14.... The government announced its decision to invoke the act just after 4:30 p.m. ET that same day.

"'PCO notes that the disturbance and the public unrest is being felt across the country and beyond the Canadian borders, which may provide further momentum to the movement and lead to irremediable harms — including to social coercion, national unity and Canada's international reputation,' it reads. '"In PCO's view, this fits with the statutory parameters defining threats to the security of Canada, though this conclusion may be vulnerable to challenge'.... Eight months later, the memorandum's author, Clerk of the Privy Council Janice Charette, defended her advice.... 

"The question of whether the federal government met the legal threshold to invoke the Emergencies Act is one of the most important ones on the commission's plate.... Under the law, cabinet must have reasonable grounds to believe a public order emergency exists — which the Act defines as one that 'arises from threats to the security of Canada that are so serious as to be a national emergency.' [Clerk of the PCO] Janice Charette told the Emergencies Act inquiry that there is a broader definition of a threat of violence than the one identified by CSIS, and it was this broader definition that led to her recommending the PM invoke the Emergencies Act. 

"The act defers to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) definition of such an emergency — which includes serious violence against people or property, espionage, foreign interference or an intent to overthrow the government by violence. The commission has seen evidence showing the director of CSIS didn't believe the self-styled Freedom Convoy constituted a threat to national security according to the definition in CSIS's enabling law. Charette said she weighed CSIS's assessment but said it was the combination of the economic and public safety impacts of the protests that, in her view, constituted a public order emergency.

"Deputy Clerk Nathalie Drouin — who, before coming to PCO, was the deputy minister at the Department of Justice — told the commission she believed the situation met the threshold. 'The threat had grown beyond the ability to end the blockades in a sustainable and durable way; extraordinary resources were required to clear Windsor, which diverted the blockade to Bluewater, raising concerns about the number of resources available,' said a document summarizing Drouin's interview with the commission in September....

"The document also showed PCO was becoming increasingly frustrated with the police response. Drouin 'recalled losing hope that local police forces in Ottawa and Windsor were capable of executing their operational plans as time went on and no concrete police actions materialized,' said the interview summary.

"The commission has [also] seen an email RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki sent to Public Safety Marco Mendicino the night before the government invoked the Emergencies Act last February. Lucki wrote that she didn't think police had exhausted all available tools to end the ongoing occupation of downtown Ottawa by protesters who had been demanding an end to COVID-19 restrictions. Charette testified Friday that if the head of the RCMP felt the Emergencies Act should not have been invoked, she could have told her."

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/pco-emergencies-act-1.6656247

China accused of election interference in Canada

The government of China has been accused of funding the campaigns of 11 candidates in Canada's 2021 federal election.

Trudeau still inexplicably blasé about China's interference in Canada's elections | Ottawa Citizen - Terry Glavin: 

Nov. 9, 2022 - "Twelve years ago, the warning came from Richard Fadden, then the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. At least two provincial cabinet ministers and several municipal politicians were more or less puppets of the People’s Republic of China, he said.... For his trouble, Fadden was traduced and roundly denounced as a fear-monger.... Ever since, intelligence agency officials have routinely shouted into the void about foreign interference in federal elections and public policy — and this week, another bombshell, this time from Global News’ investigative reporter Sam Cooper.

"For several months, the Trudeau government has been sitting on briefing notes from CSIS setting out how Beijing quietly funded 11 candidates in the 2019 federal election and placed operatives on campaign staff. The $250,000 operation was run from China’s Toronto consulate. The effort went on to place operatives in the offices of several members of Parliament....

"Everything’s under control, Trudeau said Monday. 'There are already significant laws and measures that our intelligence and security officials have to go against foreign actors operating on Canadian soil.' But that’s not what Canada’s national security and intelligence agencies say.... Only last week, the House Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs heard that Canada’s intelligence agencies don’t even have 'the tools to understand the threat'.... CSIS director general for Intelligence Assessments Adam Fisher told the committee: 'Our act was designed in 1984 and it has not had significant changes or amendments.' What’s necessary is a total 'rethink' about how these threats are dealt with.

"Beijing doesn’t behave like Moscow in the Cold War days, and its bench strength and impact far exceeds the Kremlin’s contemporary disinformation operations. In Canada, the Chinese Communist Party focuses on 'working within the system to corrupt it, compromising officials, elected officials and individuals at all levels of government, within industry, within civil society, using our open and free society for their nefarious purposes.' And Beijing has ... been so successful that even a modest foreign agents’ registry law remains hung up in the Senate, thanks mainly to Trudeau-appointed senators led by the effusively Beijing-friendly Sen. Yuen Pau Woo.

"It was owing mainly to sponsorship of that same foreign-agents registry law in the House of Commons that Metro Vancouver Conservative MP Kenny Chiu was targeted in an elaborate disinformation campaign during last year’s federal election. Chiu ended up losing the riding of Steveston—Richmond East, home to a large population of Chinese-diaspora voters, to the Liberal candidate.... An investigation by the Atlantic Council’s Forensic Research Lab found that ... 'China-linked actors took an active role in seeking to influence the September 20, 2021 parliamentary election in Canada, displaying signs of a coordinated campaign to influence behaviour among the Chinese diaspora voting in the election.' The Atlantic Council’s findings confirmed the results of a study by Canada’s own DisinfoWatch organization.

"By 2019, Beijing’s influences had become so normalized in Canada that John McCallum, the Chrétien-era cabinet minister and disgraced ambassador to China (he’d been forced to resign for taking Beijing’s side in the detention of Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. extradition warrant) openly admitted to the South China Morning Post that he’d been inviting Chinese officials to influence the outcome of the 2019 federal election to the Liberals’ advantage. "The Conservative Party sought a CSIS investigation into McCallum’s conduct, but there was the small problem of the inadequacy of Canada’s foreign-influence laws....

"The CSIS briefings revealed by Cooper at Global News this week were made available to the Prime Minister’s Office in January. Among the briefings’ more disturbing contents was evidence that Beijing sought economic data from the ridings of MPs who voted to adopt a motion in February last year declaring that China’s brutal persecution of the minority Muslim populations of Xinjiang amounted to genocide. Trudeau and his ministers absented themselves from the vote, which passed 266-0.... 

"The Conservatives were targeted by Beijing-aligned forces in the 2021 elections because party leader Erin O’Toole had authorized the development of a robust China policy, founded on the advancement of human rights and securing Canada’s interests against Xi Jinping’s strong-arm and blackmail tactics.... 'It’s clear that Beijing spread disinformation in the 2021 federal election campaign through proxies that negatively affected Conservative campaigns in several ridings.… We now find out that CSIS has concluded that Beijing corrupted political financing laws and interfered in the 2019 election,' Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong said Tuesday. 'The biggest victim of these PRC intimidation and interference operations is the Chinese community themselves."

Read more: https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/glavin-trudeau-still-inexplicably-blase-about-chinas-interference-in-canadas-elections 

CSIS warned of violence if Emergencies Act used

Canada's intelligence agency, CSIS, warned the federal government on February 13 that using the Emergencies Act to suppress the Freedom Convoy could provoke violence. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Act the next day. 

CSIS warned Trudeau government invoking Emergencies Act could spark radicalization, violence | National Post - Christopher Nardi & Ryan Tumilty:

November 7, 2022 - "Canada’s spy agency warned the federal government [that] invoking the Emergencies Act could further radicalize Canadians engaged in convoy protests, and push some towards violence. The information is contained in an undated report from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) that was presented at the Emergencies Act (EA) inquiry on Monday. It surfaced during Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens’s testimony about the blockade of the Ambassador Bridge last winter, part of several protests against pandemic restrictions.

"The document reveals that the day before the Trudeau government invoked the act on Feb. 14 in response to the Freedom Convoy protests across the country, CSIS warned the government that it could have significant and far-reaching collateral consequences. 'CSIS advised that the implementation of the EA would likely galvanize the anti-government narratives within the convoy and further the radicalization of some towards violence,' reads the document. It adds that the phenomenon was already noticed when Ontario declared a provincial state of emergency days earlier.

"The document also says CSIS warned that invoking the act could also undermine confidence in government. 'CSIS advised that the invocation of the EA by the federal government would likely leads to the dispersing of the convoy within Ottawa but would likely increase the number of Canadians who hold extreme anti-government views and push some towards the belief that violence is the only solution to what they perceive as a broken system and government,' reads the document.

"Canada’s spy agency reiterated its concerns about a potential increase in violence during an undated meeting after the act was invoked on Feb. 14."

Read more: https://nationalpost.com/news/csis-warned-trudeau-government-invoking-emergencies-act-could-spark-more-radicalization-violence

CSIS found no foreign actors funding Freedom Convoy

Canada's intelligence agency, CSIS, told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's PMO that it had found no evidence of significant foreign funding of Freedom Convoy 2022, less than a week before Trudeau told the nation that there was significant foreign funding.

CSIS found no foreign actors funding the convoy protests, according to public inquiry evidence | Globe & Mail - Marieke Walsh:

October 19, 2022 - "A week before the Emergencies Act was invoked, Canada’s intelligence agency told senior government officials it had found no evidence of foreign actors or states financing the convoy protests. 

"Minutes of a meeting held on Feb. 6 with top-ranking officials from municipal, provincial and federal governments were tabled Tuesday at the Public Order Emergency Commission, led by Justice Paul Rouleau. 'There [are] no foreign actors identified at this point supporting or financing this convoy. FINTRAC is supporting this work/assessment and the banks are also engaged,' CSIS director David Vigneault said, according to the minutes. Less than a week later though Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there was significant foreign funding....

"Mr. Vigneault, Jody Thomas – the Prime Minister’s national security and intelligence adviser – and RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki were on the call with then Ottawa police chief Peter Sloly and city manager Steve Kanellakos. Federal deputy minister for public safety Rob Stewart was also on the call, as was Ontario’s deputy solicitor-general, Mario Di Tommaso. Mr. Vigneault said Canada’s anti-money laundering watchdog, FINTRAC, and banks were tracking the GoFundMe donations supporting the protests, as well as other fundraising platforms, to ensure the money was not being 'used for a non-peaceful purpose.' 'There is not a lot of energy and support from the U.S.A. to Canada,' he said. 'CSIS has also not seen any foreign money coming from other states to support this.'

"He also told officials on the call that there were 'hardened elements' in the protest 'who will likely use violence'.... However, they are not actively participating [in] or organizing it and are likely using this as a recruiting ground.' The call took place at the end of the second weekend of disruptive demonstrations in Ottawa to protest the government’s vaccine mandates and, more generally, the government itself. The protests took over Ottawa’s downtown, upending daily life for residents and forcing businesses in the area to close....

"At the end of that week, on Feb. 11, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters at a news conference that foreign actors had become a concern. He said U.S. citizens were participating in the blockades and there were signs of 'foreign money to fund this illegal activity.' He did not specify which of the three main protests in Canada [Ottawa, Coutts, or Windsor] involved foreign influence and money.

"Asked by The Globe and Mail at the time to clarify the percentage of funds coming from the U.S., Mr. Trudeau said, “I’ve heard that on certain platforms, the number of U.S. donations are approaching 50 per cent.' Over the subsequent weekend the U.S.-based Christian fundraising website GiveSendGo was hacked and the leaked data revealed tens of thousands of Canadian and American donors had collectively contributed millions of dollars to the demonstrations.... On Wednesday The Globe asked the Prime Minister’s Office whether CSIS changed its advice and said there was foreign funding for the protests. Mr. Trudeau’s office did not directly answer....

"The meeting minutes for Feb. 6 were presented Tuesday at the commission studying the use of the act, but so far witnesses have not been asked about the CSIS intelligence. The Public Order Emergency Commission is tasked with determining whether the federal government met the required legal threshold to avail itself of the Emergencies Act’s extraordinary temporary powers. The government used those powers to crack down on protesters, even allowing banks to freeze their accounts without court orders."

Read more: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-csis-ottawa-convoy-protests-funding/

Trudeau's parliamentary ally, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, also claimed at the time that there was significant foreign funding of the Freedom Convoy, as in this Feb. 9, 2022 video:

The espionage that took down Nortel

Did Huawei bring down Nortel? Corporate espionage, theft, and the parallel rise and fall of two telecom giants | The Intelligencer - Tom Blackwell:

February 24, 2020 - "Nortel Networks ... led the way in developing digital telephone networks worldwide in the 1970s and 1980s. By the turn of the last century ... it boasted over 90,000 employees and ... accounted for a third of the worth of companies on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Its technological prowess is still legendary.... Then, in 2000, the speculative Internet bubble that had so elevated Nortel suddenly burst.... In January, 2009, Nortel filed for bankruptcy protection.... 

"Nortel’s financial troubles were well documented, but what didn’t become public until years later was espionage traced back to China....

"Michel Juneau-Katsuya was head of the CSIS Asia-Pacific desk in the late 1990s when the service became aware of 'spying activities the Chinese were conducting' against Nortel.... When the intelligence agency warned the company, it all but ignored CSIS. This led Juneau-Katsuya to a startling conclusion: 'To this day, I believe there might have been one or more agents of influence controlled by the Chinese in [Nortel] which succeeded in neutralizing our warning.'

"A little later, around 2000,...  [at] a Nortel facility in Texas, Huawei returned a fibre card ... and asked for a refund, recalls Lawrence Bill, a forensic analyst who worked on the subsequent investigation.... [W] hen Nortel engineers looked closely, they realized the 'bleeding-edge' gear had been disassembled and reverse engineered, says Bill.... Meanwhile, the company started noticing knock-off versions of some of its products in Asian markets, he says. Nortel considered suing, but dropped the matter after the Huawei office across the road in Texas closed down....

"[I]n the spring of 2004 ... a Nortel employee in the U.K. noticed some documents he’d stored in the company’s 'LiveLink' database had been downloaded by a senior executive in Canada. The Brit helpfully emailed the manager — optical-networks president Brian McFadden — to say he was available to answer any questions McFadden might have about the material. The executive’s response? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Nortel’s security staff in Raleigh, N.C., were promptly alerted.

"Larry Bill, based in Raleigh, noticed a troubling fact: Logs indicated that McFadden had signed into the Nortel system from multiple locations around the world, places he had never visited.... Security advisor Brian Shields discovered that not one, but seven Nortel executives, including CEO Frank Dunn, had been hacked, and that the hackers were vacuuming an alarming volume of sensitive material out of its databases.

"By the end of his investigation, Shields says he was able to track the theft of over 1,400 documents from the LiveLink server, and that was only during a six-month period when bosses allowed him to monitor the stealing. He found evidence the break-in of Nortel’s internal computer network had started no later than 2000, and probably began in the 1990s. He says it lasted past 2009, when he was laid off. He traced most of the hacks back to IP addresses and four Internet service providers (ISPs) in China. When material was actually downloaded from Nortel, it mostly ended up at an ISP in Shanghai....

"He cites a 2013 report by cyber-security firm Mandiant, which revealed the existence of a major Internet-espionage organization in Shanghai, likely “Unit 61398” of the People’s Liberation Army. Mandiant tracked thefts of data from 141 companies in 20 major industries.... 

"Shields, who was Nortel’s representative on the Network Security Information Exchange, a U.S. government initiative to help protect the national telecom infrastructure ... has no evidence of who ultimately received the documents, but notes that only a Nortel competitor would benefit from the information, helping it develop products, craft sales pitches and out-sell rivals.  Shields cannot prove that Huawei benefited from the hacking, but is convinced that its rise to a world telecommunications superpower — as Nortel simultaneously withered away — is no coincidence.... And yet he is certain the Nortel CEO never saw that report. His investigation wound down after a few months, and it appears no one notified firms that later bought Nortel assets that its computers might be infected.

"CSIS got in touch again early in 2009, offering to help Nortel with the hacks, Shields says, but by then it was too late. Within a week, the company had filed for bankruptcy protection.... A few years later, as the National Defence Department prepared to take over Nortel’s former research campus in Ottawa, it discovered evidence of another type of spying — old-school listening bugs implanted in the building during Nortel days, a senior Defence officer told the Ottawa Citizen and Globe and Mail."

Read more: https://www.intelligencer.ca/news/exclusive-did-huawei-bring-down-nortel-corporate-espionage-theft-and-the-parallel-rise-and-fall-of-two-telecom-giants/wcm/543c8eee-d7d0-4b8a-89e9-09c3b9c92b4a