Spies working for Chinese intelligence agencies are using job sites such as LinkedIn to lure Western workers into sharing sensitive information, according to a joint advisory by the FBI, British security agency MI5, and the governments of Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
The advisory said Chinese spies are targeting people by posing as online recruitment and employment agencies representing fake companies allegedly located outside China in order to obtain nonpublic information that could benefit the Chinese government.
The advisory comes as governments continue to issue warnings about Chinese espionage despite recent efforts by the United States and Britain to improve relations with China. While Chinese spies often rely on hacking to steal information, the advisory also highlights how spies seek to cultivate sources through public websites and communities.
Citing the decades-old intelligence-gathering alliance formed by the five countries behind the joint statement, the advisory states that China's military intelligence agencies “seek to acquire privileged military, political, and economic intelligence that could ultimately give China a strategic and tactical advantage over the Five Eyes.”
Spies particularly target and cultivate long-term relationships with classified and military personnel in the Indo-Pacific region, as well as journalists, academics, and think tank employees with knowledge of unclassified information. Targets are selected based in part on their resumes and the likelihood that they have knowledge of potentially sensitive or non-public information.
According to the recommendation, unclassified information could still be useful to spies, especially when combined with other classified information that could benefit Chinese government policy-making.
When contacted by TechCrunch for comment, a LinkedIn spokesperson said: “Creating fake accounts or misrepresenting your identity is a clear violation of our Terms of Service. We remain focused on detecting nation-state fraud and will continue to enforce our policies against fake accounts.”
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