Pro-China digital campaign targets mining firms - cybersecurity report
28/06/2022 16:21
By Zeba Siddiqui
SAN FRANCISCO, June 28 (Reuters) - A pro-China propaganda
campaign used fake social media accounts to try to stir up
opposition, including protests, against mining firms that
challenge China's business interests, U.S.-based cybersecurity
firm Mandiant said on Tuesday.
While politically motivated disinformation campaigns on
social media have grown increasingly common, researchers say,
such an operation targeting a specific industry of strategic
importance to China is rare.
The digital campaign, known to researchers as Dragonbridge,
flooded Twitter and Facebook in recent months with posts raising
environmental and health concerns over the operations of three
major mining firms: Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths Ltd LYC.AX ,
Canada’s Appia Rare Earths and Uranium Corp API.CD , and USA
Rare Earth.
China's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) and embassy
in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.
Lynas and Appia told Reuters they heard of the campaign from
Mandiant. "We tried to investigate what happened but we couldn’t
figure out anything," Appia Chief Executive Tom Drivas said.
USA Rare Earth, as well as social media firms Facebook and
Twitter, did not respond to requests for comment.
The bogus social media accounts got more aggressive this
month after the latter two firms laid out new mining plans,
Mandiant said in its report.
The report said the campaign against Lynas called for
protests over its planned construction of a rare earths
processing facility in Texas. While it failed to launch actual
protests, accounts pretended they were successful by posting
photos of unrelated, older protests in Malaysia.
Some posts specifically criticized U.S. President Joe
Biden’s move in March https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-could-sign-defense-production-authority-battery-minerals-source-2022-03-30
to invoke a law aimed at reducing U.S. reliance on Chinese
minerals.
China dominates the global market for rare earth elements -
a critical geopolitical leverage, foreign policy experts say.
"An operation like this requires a well-funded and
well-staffed entity," said John Hultquist, Mandiant's vice
president of intelligence.
Mandiant said it lacked enough data to attribute the
activity to a specific known actor.
While the campaign's impact appeared limited and most of the
social media accounts were recently removed, Hultquist said it
could mean other business competitors to China will be similarly
targeted in the future.
Some of the fake accounts invaded a public,
environmentally-conscious Facebook group to allege the mining
firms and the U.S. government were trying to expose local
populations to radioactive contamination.
“This is a particularly interesting case because they're
co-opting existing political movements and attitudes to gain
support for their strategic goals,” said Dakota Cary, a security
consultant focused on China at the Krebs Stamos Group.
(Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in SAN FRANCISCO; Editing by Howard
Goller)
((zeba.siddiqui@tr.com;))