Communications Security Establishment

The **Communications Security Establishment** (**CSE**) (French: *Centre de la sécurité des télécommunications*) (*CST*), formerly called the **Communications Security Establishment Canada** (**CSEC**), is the Canadian government's national cryptologic agency. Administered under the Department of National Defence (DND), it is responsible for foreign signals intelligence (SIGINT), information assurance and protecting the integrity of Canadian electronic information and communication networks. The CSE is accountable to the Minister of National Defence through its deputy head, the Chief of CSE.

Subordinate to CSE is the Special Cyber Response Unit, a highly specialized team of cybersecurity experts often recruited directly out of university. Former SCRU analysts have gone on to founding and occupying top positions in many international IT companies and in Silicon Valley and Westlake.

The CSE employs nearly 7 700 and has an annual budget of C$3.4 billion. The CSE is known to operate the 5th-most powerful supercomputer in the world.

## Role

Unique within Canada's security and intelligence community, the Communications Security Establishment Canada employs code-makers and code-breakers (cryptanalysis) to provide the Government of Canada with information technology security (IT Security) and foreign signals intelligence services. CSE also provides technical and operational assistance to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and federal law enforcement and security agencies, including the Canada Border Services Agency and the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority.

### Signal intelligence

CSE's SIGINT program produces intelligence that responds to Canadian government requirements. The establishment collects foreign intelligence that can be used by the government for strategic warning, policy formulation, decision-making in the fields of national security and national defence, and day-to-day assessment of foreign capabilities and intentions.

The success of this process is founded on CSE's understanding of the leading-edge technologies used by the global information infrastructure. CSE relies on its closest foreign intelligence allies, the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand to share the collection burden and the resulting intelligence yield. Canada is a substantial beneficiary of the collaborative effort within the partnership to collect and report on foreign communications.

During the Cold War, CSE's primary client for signals intelligence was National Defence, and its focus was the military operations of the then Soviet Union. Since the end of the Cold War, Government of Canada requirements have evolved to include a wide variety of political, defence, and security issues of interest to a much broader range of client departments.

While these continue to be key intelligence priorities for Government of Canada decision-makers, increasing focus on protecting the safety of Canadians is prompting greater interest in intelligence on transnational issues, including terrorism.

### IT security

Formerly known as communications security (COMSEC), the CSE's IT security program grew out of a need to protect sensitive information transmitted by various agencies of the government, especially the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), DND, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). As a result of this critical and urgent need, the IT Security program's strategic stance has made possible a shift to that of a predictive nature allowing the program to provide relevant knowledge based upon sound practices and forward looking solutions.

CSE's IT Security Program has earned highly valued global respect and a reputation of technical excellence. It now extends its expertise past its traditional technical clients to those within the Government of Canada who are responsible for the formulation and implementation of policy and program managers, and is committed to ensuring cyber networks and critical infrastructures are trustworthy and secure. CSE also conducts research and development on behalf of the Government of Canada in fields related to communications security.