LONDON — The spy agencies of the Five Eyes international intelligence partnership warned on Wednesday that Chinese spies are attempting to recruit and compromise government and military personnel to gain a tactical advantage over the U.S. and its allies.
In a rare joint bulletin, the intelligence agencies of Britain, the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand warned that China is increasingly using professional networking sites and job platforms — including LinkedIn and Indeed — to gain access to classified information.
The bulletin said that Five Eyes agencies have uncovered cases of individuals who have handed over sensitive information, leading to criminal prosecutions. Chinese intelligence officers and their accomplices pose as consultants, human resources professionals, or think tank staff, placing online job advertisements for roles including foreign policy and defense analysts.
The joint statement said that China’s spies “ultimately seek to acquire privileged military, political and economic intelligence that can provide China with a strategic and tactical advantage over the Five Eyes.”
Western intelligence assessed that those targeted include those with top-level security clearance and military personnel, including those stationed in the Indo-Pacific, according to the bulletin. The targeting effort by the Chinese state also extends to academics, journalists and freelance writers.
The Five Eyes agencies documented a five-step plan for recruitment operations, including the commissioning of reports based on sensitive information about China, defense, and the Indo-Pacific. China, they said, is willing to pay between a few hundred to several thousand dollars per report.
“Certain types of data can place the lives of frontline military or other personnel at risk, can weaken our economic prosperity, and enable interference in our democratic processes,” the bulletin noted, adding that even non-classified information can be of use to the Chinese state when combined with other information its intelligence agencies have already acquired.
The bulletin also noted that individuals passing information can be exposed to criminal prosecution under espionage laws.
The warning comes after a previous MI5 alert last year about Chinese agents targeting British MPs using LinkedIn.
U.K. Minister of State for Security Dan Jarvis said in a statement that the U.K. “will continue to tackle hostile actions from a range of states including China.”
North Korea was found to be using fake remote IT workers in order to gain access to major companies. That country’s methodology — revealed in part by Google’s Threat Intelligence Group — was seen to fuel the “dual motivations” of fulfilling state objectives and pursuing personal financial gains — make them particularly dangerous,” the tech giant said.
Jarvis noted that the U.K. will continue to engage with China diplomatically despite the new warning.
“We’ve been clear that it is in the national interest to engage with China — not least because it enables us to directly challenge behavior which we will not tolerate, such as this activity exposed by MI5 and our partners, while engaging on areas with clear benefits for the UK,” he said.