Chinese hackers targeted Uyghurs living in the US, the Facebook security team said

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“They targeted activists, journalists and dissidents among Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities from Xinjiang in China, who mainly lived abroad in Turkey, Kazakhstan, the United States and other countries,” Facebook said in a Wednesday following its findings on the cyber-espionage campaign. .

The hackers have infected targets’ electronic devices with malware ‘to enable surveillance’, Facebook FB said. In some cases, the hackers have compromised or impersonated news websites popular among Uyghurs to secretly install spyware.

“This group used fake Facebook accounts to create fictional personas posing as journalists, students, human rights activists or members of the Uyghur community to build trust in the people they attacked and trick them into clicking malicious links” , the company said.

In January, the United States officially declared that China is committing genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghur Muslims and minority ethnic and religious groups living in the northwestern region of Xinjiang. (The Chinese government denied this claim, calling it a lie.)

The US State Department has previously estimated that as many as 2 million Uyghurs, as well as members of other Muslim minorities, have been held in internment camps in the region.

Facebook did not blame the Beijing government directly, but said the hackers “had the hallmarks of a well-funded and sustained operation.” (Hackers associated with the Chinese government have previously hacked iPhones and Android devices to target Uyghurs.)

The hacking groups found to be behind the latest campaign are known in the cybersecurity industry as “Evil Eye” and “Earth Empusa” and have been involved in previous espionage campaigns, according to Facebook.

Facebook’s announcement comes a day before CEO Mark Zuckerberg will appear before Congress, alongside the heads of Twitter and Google. Zuckerberg is expected to be asked about the role his platform may have played in fueling the January 6 riot at the Capitol, among other things.

Facebook and other social media platforms have been widely criticized for allowing Russian trolls to impersonate Americans online in the run-up to the 2016 election. Since then, Facebook has publicly sued some governments and other entities that it believes are using their platform for nefarious purposes .

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