The Australian company Lynas Rare Earths Ltd said on Friday that they were the target of a number of cyber-attacks from social media accounts possibly linked to the Chinese Communist Party.
According to cyber security firm Mandiant, the main motive behind the cyber-attacks is to destabilise the investment plans of Western companies when it comes to rare earth mineral deposits.
Beijing is currently the leader in that sector and according to AFP, Mandiant believes they do not want to lose their position. As a result, they have been running false information campaigns.
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An example cited by Lynas was that the Chinese social media accounts attempted to sway public opinion against a plant that the company is currently building in Texas along with US government.
“We see bot posts on various social media channels every day and we report them every day, and it’s quite frustrating,” Lynas chief executive officer Amanda Lacaze told Bloomberg.
“It’s very easy to see the bot posts and the messages are exactly the same.”
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The cyberattacks were first spotted by Mandiant and they believed that the “Dragonbridge” campaign was the work of a “People’s Republic of China (PRC) network”. According to Bloomberg, the report by Mandiant also said that Canada’s Appia Rare Earths & Uranium Corp is another target.
In the recent past, the minerals have gained a lot of popularity due to their usage in providing clean energy as well as military equipment. As a result, China are keen to continue their domination as the top producer of rare earths and that is being seen as the main reasons behind these recent attacks.
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