In this interview with TVO The Agenda’s Steve Paikin, Citizen Lab director Ron Deibert discusses his recent trip to the White House, the impact that the Trump administration’s policies will have on cyber security worldwide, and why Canadians should be concerned by a potential bilateral surveillance agreement with the U.S.
In May 2025, Keir Giles, a well-known expert on Russian military operations, was targeted with a highly sophisticated and personalized phishing attack. Using a method not previously observed by the Citizen Lab, the attacker posed as a U.S. State Department employee to convince Mr. Giles to create and send app-specific passwords for his email accounts, bypassing multi-factor authentication. Google spotted and blocked the attack, attributing it to a Russian state-backed operator.
