Wow.....that's pretty bad from China. It just shows it can never be trusted with anything and makes you wonder if ASM is also a target.
Here is the entire article.
Australian miner Lynasis convinced fake social media accounts are spreading disinformation and political agendas hostile to its rare earths business after receiving evidence it was the target of a coordinated cyber campaign that acted in the Chinese national interest.
US cybersecurity firm Mandiant told Lynas that fake social media accounts had sought to incite protests in April and May against the company’s plan to build a rare earths processing plant in Texas.
The social media pressure coincided with final negotiations between Lynas and the US government over a $US120 million financial support package for the Texas project, which is part of a US plan to break China’s stranglehold on production of the 17 rare earth elements needed for electric vehicles and defence tools like drones.Two other North American producers of rare earths were targeted with similar campaigns and Mandiant said it had “high confidence” the campaigns were consistent with a broader, pro-China cyber campaign it dubbed “Dragonbridge”.The claims come after former Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared in 2020 that foreign governments were stepping up cyber attacks on Australian businesses and as new Prime Minister Anthony Albanese rushes to counter rising Chinese influence in the South Pacific.Mandiant’s conclusions are based on qualitative, circumstantial observations about the way the social media accounts were created and behaved.The firm told Lynas that many of the accounts were created between March and June, used stock images as profile photos, frequently posted similar or identical content and had formulaic usernames involving random numbers and letters.Mandiant said the similar patterns of behaviour suggested “possible batch creation” of the accounts, which engaged in “microtargeting” of specific audiences through online chat rooms.Asked by The Australian Financial Review whether it had quantitative proof of the origin and motivation of the accounts, Mandiant vice president John Hultquist said his firm had no proof the Chinese government was involved and it made no assessment about the location of the account operators.“We do not have evidence that the Chinese government is involved and assess that this activity is conducted in support of PRC [Peoples Republic of China] strategic interests,” he said in a written response to questions.“We judged these accounts to be misrepresenting their true identities and origins.“We have observed other coordinated activity conducted by the accounts, constituting a concerted effort to promote desired messaging.”Asked whether the social media posts could simply be Texans who were concerned about Lynas’ plans to build a refinery, Mr Hultquist said; “Mandiant judges that activity detailed here has been conducted by coordinated and inauthentic accounts to promote messaging in support of PRC political interests. This does not preclude the fact that real individuals may also share and post about these views.”Lynas said it had no commercial relationship with Mandiant but had been approached by the cybersecurity firm with the evidence.Lynas mines rare earths in Western Australia and processes the material in Malaysia, where it runs the world’s only non-Chinese processing plant with the ability to produce “separated” rare earths.The low levels of radioactivity in the material Lynas processes have sparked community protests in Malaysia at times in the past decade and made the company a political football in the South East Asian nation.The social media accounts identified by Mandiant posted images of those Malaysian protests when trying to incite Texans and in some cases also called for Malaysians to boycott Lynas.Lynas said Mandiant’s evidence proved there had been “engagement” between anti-Lynas activists in Malaysia and the pro-China social media accounts.“Lynas has been the subject of disinformation campaigns in Malaysia for some years, however, this is the first time we have seen evidence of direct links between fake social media accounts spreading disinformation and political agendas,” said the company in a statement.“The report shows evidence of direct and mutual engagement between the pro-China Dragonbridge social media accounts and the Malaysian anti-Lynas activists.“Mandiant’s analysis reveals that this campaign is not driven by actual community or environmental concerns but by other agendas.“This demonstrates the potential for social media accounts to be manipulated to promote disinformation or to amplify the voices of activists with a self-serving agenda.”Mandiant said its conclusions were limited to social media activity and did not identify any direct cyber attacks on the websites or digital systems of the rare earths miners named.The other two miners named in the report were Canadian company Appia Rare Earths and Texas based aspirant US Rare Earth.Those two companies may ultimately have their ore processed at the Texas facility that Lynas plans to build with the US government funding.The Texas plant will help Lynas gain more exposure to “heavy” rare earths like Terbium and Dysprosium; the flagship products made by Lynas’ Malaysian plant are “light” rare earths Neodymium and Praseodymium.Australian government agencies have also shown a willingness to invest in securing rare earths supply chains; Export Finance Australia agreed to lend more than $1 billion to Iluka Resources in April on the proviso it builds a rare earths separation plant at Eneabba in WA.The Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund has also pledged financial support for WA rare earths mining aspirant Hastings Technology Metals.Mandiant is a NASDAQ listed company which is currently the subject of a $US5.4 billion ($7.8 billion) takeover bid by US technology giant Alphabet; the owner of Google.Release of the report comes less than a week after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission announced that it would conduct a probe into Alphabet’s proposed acquisition of Mandiant in a bid to determine whether it would have a negative impact on the provision of internet services in Australia.Mandiant said companies working in areas of strategic importance to China may become the target of similar campaigns in future.“We may see other global competitors to PRC firms in other industries targeted by such information operations,” said the firm the report it shared with Lynas.
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