How China Threatens the Midterms

A pro-China online network is attempting to undermine voter confidence ahead of the midterms in one of several disinformation campaigns targeting the United States, cybersecurity firm Mandiant said on Wednesday.

Researchers at the Google subsidiary said the campaign by "Dragonbridge," a known information operation with alleged links to Beijing, may signal China's official entry into U.S. election interference. However, it hasn't been very effective.

Dubious online accounts have been pushing narratives including a claim that APT41, a hacking group with alleged ties to China's Ministry of State Security, is backed by the U.S. government, Mandiant said. Others allege U.S. involvement in the Nord Stream gas pipeline explosions.

Since September, however, cybersecurity researchers have identified "aggressive attempts to discredit the U.S. democratic process, including attempts to discourage Americans from voting in the 2022 U.S. midterm elections."

Popular tactics include impersonating fact checkers, altering news articles to fabricate content and posing as American Twitter users to spread stories online about racial strife and social injustice.

Additional lines include asserting the likelihood of a "civil war" and the ultimate collapse of democratic institutions in the U.S. by highlighting political infighting and partisan bias, the report said.

Videos of unclear origin also sought to undermine confidence and discourage voting by disparaging the legislative process.

The goal, Mandiant said, is to divide Americans and "sow discord and dissatisfaction within U.S. society," as well as between the U.S. and its allies.

The company said Dragonbridge was assessed "with high confidence to be operating in support of the political interests of the People's Republic of China."

The narratives being pushed to Americans online also closely resemble social media messaging by Chinese diplomats and state media workers, who have mocked domestic governance failures and tragedies in the U.S., and also used the January 6 Capitol attack to deflect criticism of China's restrictive political system and human rights record.

Dragonbridge is one of two prominent pro-China disinformation campaigns, alongside "HaiEnergy," Mandiant told Newsweek.

Dragonbridge operates "across dozens of platforms/websites with hundreds of accounts," the firm said, but the scale of its operations is not an indication of success.

"Given the very limited engagement we have seen the activity receive, the Dragonbridge campaign does not appear to be particularly effective," said Mandiant.

"More broadly, information operations campaigns range in effectiveness—some appear to receive more genuine engagement than others. Such campaigns vary in the tactics they use to attempt to reach their target audiences, and their reach likewise varies accordingly," it said.

Malign cyber actors have several giveaways, according to the cybersecurity researchers. Account profile photos are often taken from various sources including stock imagery, suggesting an attempt to "obfuscate their identities."

Accounts posting similar or identical content are often found to have been created around a similar date, demonstrating what Mandiant called "batch creation." Their usernames also follow a pattern consisting of English-language names and a string of seemingly random numbers.

John Hultquist, head of Intelligence at Mandiant, told Newsweek: "The U.S. Government is already taking a more aggressive posture when it comes to campaigns like this. We're going to have to maintain that posture in advance of elections, but also thereafter as well."

Wednesday's Mandiant report said Dragonbridge's "aggressiveness, profligacy and persistence demonstrate the intent and resilience of the actors behind the campaign."

"Despite the limited impact of the campaign's operations, it continues to spend significant resources to pursue and sustain multiple operations simultaneously," the company said.

In June, the Pentagon acknowledged Mandiant's work in exposing a Dragonbridge campaign targeting Australian mining company Lynas Rare Earths shortly after it secured a $120 million Defense Department contract to build a processing facility in Texas.

The project is part of the Biden administration's attempt to reduce U.S. and allied dependence on China in their rare earths supply chain. Mandiant found pro-China accounts criticizing Lynas' alleged environmental record and mobilizing protests against the plant's construction.