At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus.
It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found. Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the military’s propaganda efforts morphed into an anti-vax campaign. Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines – China’s Sinovac inoculation.
Read more…
Source: Reuters
Related:
- Chinese researchers break RSA encryption with a quantum computer
October 14, 2024
The research team, led by Wang Chao from Shanghai University, found that D-Wave’s quantum computers can optimize problem-solving in a way that makes it possible to attack encryption methods such as RSA. In a potentially alarming development for global cybersecurity, Chinese researchers have unveiled a method using D-Wave’s quantum annealing systems to crack classic encryption, potentially ...
- U.S. Wiretap Systems Targeted in China-Linked Hack
October 5, 2024
A cyberattack tied to the Chinese government penetrated the networks of a swath of U.S. broadband providers, potentially accessing information from systems the federal government uses for court-authorized network wiretapping requests. For months or longer, the hackers might have held access to network infrastructure used to cooperate with lawful U.S. requests for communications data, according to ...
- China: Rast ransomware gang aiming at domestic government and enterprises
September 29, 2024
From December 2023 to the present, QiAnXin Threat Intelligence Center observed that a ransomware written in rust language is very active on the Chinese Internet, and a large number of machines in China have been ransomed, with up to more than 20 victimized units only in the terminals of government and enterprises, which the researchers call ...
- China accuses Taiwan-backed group of cyberattacks
September 23, 2024
The Ministry of State Security said a Taiwan military-backed hacking group has been carrying out cyberattacks against targets in China, urging people to report “anti-propaganda sabotage”. The ministry said since the beginning of this year, Anonymous 64 had sought to upload and broadcast “content that denigrates the mainland’s political system and major policies” on websites, outdoor ...
- Court-Authorized Operation Disrupts Worldwide Botnet Used by People’s Republic of China State-Sponsored Hackers
September 18, 2024
The Justice Department today announced a court-authorized law enforcement operation that disrupted a botnet consisting of more than 200,000 consumer devices in the United States and worldwide. As described in court documents unsealed in the Western District of Pennsylvania, the botnet devices were infected by People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-sponsored hackers working for Integrity ...
- TikTok just had the most important two hours of its life
September 16, 2024
Who really controls TikTok’s magical algorithm — the US-based company that runs the app or its Chinese parent, ByteDance? That’s the question that bedeviled a trio of federal judges on Monday charged with deciding whether to allow the implementation of a law that could ultimately result in TikTok being banned for all Americans. After more than ...

