The Five Eyes intelligence alliance, comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US, has issued a joint notice warning that Chinese intelligence agencies are using job platforms such as LinkedIn to "lure" recruits with access to sensitive information.
"China’s military intelligence services are using an increasingly wide array of professional networking sites and online job platforms to target Five Eyes government and military personnel — and anyone with access to classified or privileged information," the domestic security agencies of the alliance’s countries said in a bulletin titled "Safeguarding Our Secrets" on Wednesday.
Targets include security clearance holders, particularly in defence, foreign affairs, security and intelligence; military personnel with knowledge of regional capabilities and activities; and individuals with direct or indirect access to government information, the agencies said.
The bulletin said intelligence operatives or their affiliates pose as consultants, think tank staff or recruiters, posting jobs for foreign policy and defence analysts before "pressuring" successful applicants to provide "non-public" information for "unspecified clients who are associated with the Chinese government."
Beijing's military intelligence services "ultimately seek to acquire privileged military, political and economic intelligence that can provide China with a strategic and tactical advantage over the Five Eyes," the agencies said.
The recruits receive from a few hundred to several thousand dollars per report, and "may be offered more money in return for increasingly sensitive information," the bulletin said.
‘Ironic’
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning on Thursday accused the Five Eyes alliance of being the world's "largest intelligence cooperation network," which has long conducted "large-scale systematic espionage activities globally."
"For such an organisation to accuse China of a spy threat is, in itself, ironic," she told reporters in Beijing.
