Australian cyber-security experts are using a trick straight out of Game of Thrones to expose Chinese hackers snooping on sensitive communications. The tactic has, among other things, flushed out pro-China activists who were being fed the hacked information.
Australian student and human rights activist Drew Pavlou has been the target of pro-China harassment ever since he was assaulted by likely Chinese state thugs during a pro-Hong Kong protest he organised at the University of Queensland in 2019. Pavlou has been repeatedly denounced by the CCP’s mouthpiece, The Global Times, and even named by the Chinese foreign ministry.
The latest attack reveals that Chinese hackers accessed his private email account and apparently obtained the identity of Uighur people with whom he was in contact. At least one woman in China has been arrested and sent to a Xinjiang “re-education” facility.
As you may recall, in Game of Thrones, wily Tyrion Lannister flushes out his ambitious sister’s spy at court by supplying suspects with fake information. Each one was given a different story. When his sister confronted him with one of the stories, he knew exactly who the spy was. This gambit, known as a “canary trap”, was first made famous in Tom Clancy’s Patriot Games.
In a similar canary trap, cyber security experts planted false information using Pavlou’s email account – a fake story about a book contract, with a precise dollar figure attached.
When the story was repeated, with the exact figure, by a Twitter account run by two Australian pro-Beijing activists, the hackers were exposed.
Mr Pavlou said when he realised the potential gravity of the situation, he “wanted to vomit … The possibility that a Uighur Australian’s family member may have been taken to one of these incarceration camps because they were friends with me and talking with me is really scary,” he said.
“That’s something that weighs on my conscience so much, and I still feel so sick about it.”
This is not the first time that such “canary traps” have been employed to expose Chinese spying. Recently, intelligence agencies, suspecting that China was spying on high level calls between Joe Biden, Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison, deliberately allowed specific classified information to be discussed. The information quickly found its way to Chinese agencies, confirming the suspicions.
Cyber security experts initially noticed suspicious logins to Pavlou’s email account. The IPs originated from mainland China. Although it cannot be confirmed, the attack fits the profile of a state actor. Internet 2.0’s Robert Potter says, “The remote logins were from multiple IP addresses which shows they had preset cyber infrastructure for an attack. They had robust infrastructure and they bypassed his two-factor authentication.”
After the breach was discovered, emails with fake book contracts that included a monetary figure were sent from a burner email account to a number of pro-China activists. Each email had a different, unique amount attached.
About seven weeks later, the Twitter account of registered not-for-profit Critical Social Work Publishing House, an organisation established to “publish the work of social work practitioners and others helping to address injustice and inequality from a critical perspective” tweeted the exact figure that had been planted in Mr Pavlou’s email.
“Curious … Apparently Vicky Xu received a $350,000 advance from her publisher for the book she’s taken time off to write. If this is true, does anyone know if her publisher made her delete her Twitter account because of tweets like this?” the tweet read.
Critical Social Work Publishing House is written by two Australians, one of whom is Jaqueline “Jaq” James, a pro-China voice who claims to be a “Western Propaganda Analyst” and has lectured in English for the CCP’s People’s Liberation Army. She also claims to have worked as a legal policy officer for the Australian government.
The other author is Milton James, believed to be her father, who wrote a July 2020 article questioning whether the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre – where Chinese authorities killed hundreds of students – actually happened.
It is unclear exactly how Critical Social Work Publishing House obtained the figure that was planted in Mr Pavlou’s email.
Milton and Jaqueline James did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
The Australian
However, as Pavlou says, this is a clear, shocking case of Chinese spying and interference in Australia. “They’re deliberately trying to undermine the credibility and genuinely attack and smear anti-CCP critics in Australia.”
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