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Critical minerals and cyber operations

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Critical minerals and cyber operations

Critical minerals and rare earth elements (REEs) have become strategic dependencies rather than commodities, with China controlling much of global processing and refining capacity. As competition for these resources intensifies across land, Arctic regions, and seabeds, cyber threat actors including state-sponsored groups and criminal organizations are increasingly targeting mining organizations to gain competitive advantage. The convergence of geopolitical resource competition and cyber operations is expected to drive growing cyber activity targeting critical mineral supply chains.

Why it matters: Mining operators, energy companies, and infrastructure providers dependent on critical minerals face elevated risk from state-backed and criminal cyber operations seeking to disrupt supply chains or steal strategic advantage; practitioners should implement enhanced monitoring and incident response capabilities for their critical mineral operations and suppliers.

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