According to a Facebook investigation, Chinese hackers attempted to spy on Uyghur activists and journalists in the United States.
“They primarily targeted activists, journalists, and dissidents among Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities from China’s Xinjiang region living overseas in Turkey, Kazakhstan, the United States, and other nations,” Facebook said in a post explaining its cyber espionage results on Wednesday.
Facebook (FB) said the hackers infected targets’ electronic devices with malware “to allow surveillance.” In some cases, hackers hacked or impersonated popular Uyghur news websites in order to secretly instal spying software.
According to the firm, this group used fake Facebook accounts to create fictitious personas posing as journalists, students, human rights activists, or members of the Uyghur community in order to gain trust and trick people into clicking on malicious links.
According to Facebook, some of its findings were aided by research by FireEye, a cybersecurity firm.
The United States declared in January that China is committing genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic and religious minorities in the north-western region of Xinjiang.
According to the US State Department, up to 2 million Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minority groups have been imprisoned in internment camps in the country.
The hackers “had the hallmarks of a well-resourced and persistent operation,” according to Facebook, which did not explicitly blame the Chinese government. (Hackers linked to the Chinese government have previously targeted Uyghurs by hacking iPhones and Android devices.)
According to Facebook, the hacking groups suspected of being behind the latest campaign are known in the cybersecurity sector as “Evil Eye” and “Earth Empusa,” and have previously been engaged in espionage operations.
Facebook’s announcement comes just one day before CEO Mark Zuckerberg, along with the CEOs of Twitter and Google, are scheduled to testify before Congress. Among other things, Zuckerberg is expected to be questioned about the role his platform may have played in fueling the January 6th riot at the US Capitol.
In the run-up to the 2016 election, Facebook and other social media platforms were widely chastised for allowing Russian trolls to pose as Americans online. Since then, Facebook has openly chastised governments and other organisations that it believes are abusing its platform.
