Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
Good morning. Let me add that I am honoured to be able to speak before you.
I serve my second term as chair of the board of Slovenian Ethical Hackers Foundation occasionally. I also collaborate with various parliamentarians and committees of NATO countries on diverse topics, from the safety of electronic elections to critical infrastructure and so forth. I also serve as virtual chief information security officer for a Swiss fintech company and as chief information officer to a U.S.-based, women-owned, Ukrainian-owned defence and cyber-defence company, where I try my utmost to empower these remarkable ladies who are heavily engaged in defending their country via cyber means and otherwise. Pertaining to that, if Mr. Chair would permit, I would take a few minute for introductory remarks.
Let me start by saying that usually I'm very diligent before each such engagement as today's hearing, preparing meticulously the topics I would like to present, but ever since I got acquainted with the truly brave and relentless women who are, in the most part, responsible for setting up one of the most formidable cyber armies in the world without outside help or funding and while under rocket attacks, I have kind of changed my perspective on what's important, and I fully embrace the new reality.
I believe it's one thing to discuss cyberwarfare from the comfort of your home or office while playing virtual cyber-games such as NATO's Locked Shields, and quite another when, as we had an example of, one of our core team members couldn't get online because a rocket landed in his apartment, cutting Internet cables, but luckily not exploding.
It's one thing to have a good night's rest and quite another to sleep two to three hours a day, being awakened by air raid sirens and still continuing highly demanding intellectual work and repeating that day after day for over a year because time is of the essence and your countrymen are dying.
I believe it is of the utmost importance to point that out, because I'm quite familiar with various cyberwarfare scenarios, but none of them take into account the aforementioned reality of working under such stressful conditions, where the only time you get to rest is when there is no electricity or Internet connectivity.
Having said that, we were recently present at a closed conference in D.C. on the topic of emerging technologies. The audience was mostly composed of military and intelligence agencies from Five Eyes. They asked us how we are able to accomplish all that we have showcased, and my answer was quite simple: These ladies don't sleep. That's how you accomplish what they have done, and, truth be told, it's them empowering me and not vice versa.
Also let me say that I regret that this hearing cannot be conducted in camera, as I believe is the term, because I wanted to share some of the accomplishments of the conducted cyber-efforts that surprised both the military and intelligence agencies that were present. I also have critical information pertaining to the security of all NATO countries that was acquired by cyber means, and I am quite certain that western agencies don't have that information available, so I would appreciate it if we could afterwards establish some secure communication channel with your present committee, which my colleagues and I trust, not only because Canada was doing and helping Ukraine while others were just talking, but also because we know from other experiences that members of the committee are trustworthy.
Now, as far as real-world experience goes, I would like to suggest to you starting points for discussions that we see as an example of the most important Ukrainian cyberwarfare efforts. Crowd-sourced intelligence is being utilized very efficiently, both in terms of ISR—intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance—especially with the Delta system, which I'm sure the members of the committee are familiar with.
Next is crowdsourced operations. Ukraine has effectively engaged the so-called “IT Army” of over 100,000 IT specialists in conducting mostly information war campaigns. Additionally, it has a core team of 1,400 highly sophisticated hackers who are not connected to any military or intel branch, but are still coordinating operations with both. It has proven itself to be a remarkable asset.
Lastly, I would like to draw attention to the recent public exposure of the Vulkan files, which are already known to western intelligence agencies. This incident, in essence, reinforces the warnings I've been expressing for years, including during my previous engagement with the committee on the subject of threat analysis for the Canadian Armed Forces—