Facebook Blocks Chinese Hackers Using Fake Person as Targeting Uyghur Activists

The security experts and analysts from Facebook threat intelligence team has recently worked together to detect and stop a huge range of threat.

The threat that is being detected is known as “Earth Empusa” or “Evil Eye” in the industry of security. However, this threat includes cyber-espionage campaigns, influence operations, and much more.

Not only this, as the threat actors of this recent flaw, nation-state actors and many other groups are continuously hacking and exploiting Facebook’s platform.

The analysts have asserted that this is not the first time when hackers have been arrested for such activity. The news got spread all over the internet, and the social media company affirmed that the hacker had targeted the activists, dissidents, and journalists who were predominantly Uighurs.

Uighurs are a largely Muslim ethnic group that is continuously facing persecution in China; however, Uighurs belong from the north-western region of Xinjiang in China.

The ones who got targeted are currently abiding in places that include Turkey, the United States, Australia, and Canada.

TTPs Used by the Threat Actors

Here are the TTPs that are used by the hackers in this threat are mentioned below:-

• Selective targeting and exploit protection
• Negotiating and representing news websites
• Social engineering
• Using fraudulent third-party app stores
• Outsourcing malware development
• Industry tracking

Moreover, the western government is continuously trying to hold Beijing accountable for the mass detainments of all Muslim Uighurs. After all the claims, China simply denied all the accusations of abuse. 

China also proclaimed that it had executed different camps, and all these camps implement vocational training and are required to fight extremism. Not only this, but according to the report, nearly 1 million people, and the majority of people belong to Uighurs, have been arrested in the Xinjiang camps.

Moreover, after a proper investigation, the report came, and it states that China is facing criticism from all over the world because of the way they have treated the mostly Muslim Uighur community in Xinjiang.

Not only the cybersecurity experts but the rights groups also consider that China has restrained more than a million Uighurs over the past few years.

Facebook declared that this hacking group has used fake accounts to pretend as fictitious journalists, students, rights advocates, or Uighurs so that they can build trust with their targets and can easily deceive them into clicking all the malicious links.

Apart from all these things, Facebook has also discovered a website that was generally performed by the group to simulate the third-party Android app stores along with Uighur-themed apps, such as prayer app, that contain the malware.

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