Mandiant’s findings are based on qualitative and circumstantial observations about how social media accounts were created and behaved.
The company told Lynas that many of the accounts were created between March and June, used archive images as profile photos, often posted similar or identical content, and had usernames formulas with random numbers and letters.
Mandiant said similar patterns of behavior suggested a “possible batch creation” of accounts, which were engaged in “micro-targeting” specific audiences through online chat rooms.
Asked by The Australian Financial Review if he had quantitative evidence of the origin and motivation of the accounts, Mandiant’s vice president, John Hultquist, said his company had no evidence that the Chinese government was involved and that it did not. made no assessment on the location of account operators.
“We have no evidence that the Chinese government is involved and we assess that this activity is carried out in support of the PRC [Peoples Republic of China] strategic interests, ”he said in a written response to the questions.
“We have judged that these accounts distorted their real identities and origins.
“We have observed another coordinated activity carried out by the accounts, which constitutes a concerted effort to promote the desired message.”
When asked if social media posts could be simply Texans worried about Lynas ’plans to build a refinery, he said. “Judges requesting that the activity detailed here has been carried out on coordinated and non-authentic accounts to promote messages in support of the political interests of the PRC. This does not exclude the fact that real people may also share and publish these opinions “.
Lynas said he had no business relationship with Mandiant, but that the cybersecurity company had approached him with evidence.
Lynas exploits rare earths in Western Australia and processes the material in Malaysia, where it manages the world’s only non-Chinese processing plant with the capacity to produce “separate” rare earths.
The low levels of radioactivity in Lynas ’material processes have provoked community protests in Malaysia at times over the past decade and have turned the company into a political football in the Southeast Asian nation.
Social media accounts identified by Mandiant posted pictures of those Malaysian protests as they tried to incite the Texans and in some cases also asked Malaysians to boycott Lynas.
Lynas said Mandiant’s evidence showed there had been “compromise” between anti-Lynas activists in Malaysia and pro-China social media accounts.
“Lynas has been the subject of misinformation campaigns in Malaysia for some years, however, this is the first time we see evidence of direct links between fake social media accounts spreading misinformation and political agendas,” the company said in a statement.
“The report shows evidence of a direct and mutual engagement between pro-China social media accounts Dragonbridge and Malaysian anti-Lynas activists.
“Mandiant’s analysis reveals that this campaign is not driven by real community or environmental concerns, but by other agendas.
“This demonstrates the potential for social media accounts to be manipulated to promote misinformation or to amplify activists’ voices with a self-service agenda.”
Mandiant said his findings were limited to social media activity and did not identify any direct cyberattacks on the websites or digital systems of the named rare earth miners.
The other two miners mentioned in the report were Canadian company Appia Rare Earths and US Texas Rare Earth aspirant.
Ultimately, these two companies can process their ore at the Texas facility that Lynas plans to build with U.S. government funding.
The Texas plant will help Lynas gain more exposure to “heavy” rare earths such as turbidity and dysprosium; the flagship products manufactured by Lynas plant in Malaysia are rare earths “light” neodymium and praseodymium.
Australian government agencies have also shown a willingness to invest in securing rare earth supply chains; Export Finance Australia agreed to lend more than $ 1 billion to Iluka Resources in April on the condition that it build a rare earth separation plant at Eneabba in WA.
The North Australia Infrastructure Fund has also pledged to provide financial support to WA Hastings Technology Metals ’rare earth mining aspirant.
Mandiant is a NASDAQ-listed company that is currently the subject of a $ 5.4 billion ($ 7.8 billion) takeover bid for U.S. technology giant Alphabet; the owner of Google.
The report comes less than a week after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission announced it would conduct an investigation into Alphabet’s proposed acquisition of Mandiant to determine if it would have a negative impact. in the provision of Internet services in Australia.
Mandiant said companies working in areas of strategic importance to China could become the target of similar campaigns in the future.
“We can see other global competitors for PRC companies in other industries targeting these information operations,” the company said in the report it shared with Lynas.