Canada expects hacktivists will target its 2019 elections

It's Canada's turn to freak out about election hacking. At a news conference held today, the country's Communications Security Establishment (CSE) said it was likely that hackers would try to interfere with its 2019 elections.

But the problem, as of now, isn't with Russia -- it's with hacktivists. CSE said they expect some well-planned attacks from hacktivists in the upcoming elections and will offer cyber security advice to both parliamentarians and political parties. But because federal elections in Canada are mostly paper-based, politicians are more at risk than elections themselves.

Election meddling has been a hot issue since the last US presidential election. Russia has been accused of hacking election systems in 39 US states as well as targeting German parliament. While running in the French presidential election, Emmanuel Macron's campaign was hacked and CSE said the 2015 Canadian federal election was hit with some "low-sophistication cyber threat activity."

For now CSE's precautionary measures are limited to providing guidelines to politicians. But we all know that politicians are terrible when it comes to cyber security, so good luck with that.