Facebook Says Took Action Against Hackers In China Targeting Dissidents, Mostly Uyghurs

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th March, 2021) Facebook has taken action against a group of hackers in China who were targeting dissidents, mostly Uyghurs from Xinjiang province, the company's head of Cyber Espionage Investigations Mike Dvilyanski and Head of Security Policy Nathaniel Gleicher said on Wednesday.

"Today, we're sharing actions we took against a group of hackers in China known in the security industry as Earth Empusa or Evil Eye - to disrupt their ability to use their infrastructure to abuse our platform, distribute malware and hack people's accounts across the internet.

They targeted activists, journalists and dissidents predominantly among Uyghurs from Xinjiang in China primarily living abroad in Turkey, Kazakhstan, the United States, Syria, Australia, Canada and other countries," Dvilyanski and Gleicher said in a statement.

Facebook disrupted the Chinese hackers' operation by blocking malicious domains from being shared on its platform, took down the group's accounts and notified the targeted individuals.