londonReuters —
Security officials from the Five Eyes alliance, which includes the United States and Britain, warned on Wednesday that Chinese spies are actively using online recruitment platforms to recruit people with access to classified information.
The “Keep Our Secrets” bulletin said that China’s military intelligence agencies used a wide range of professional networking sites and online recruitment services to target government officials, military personnel, or anyone with access to classified information.
The domestic security agencies of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand said that “China’s military intelligence services ultimately aim to acquire privileged military, political, and economic intelligence that would give China a strategic and tactical advantage over the Five Eyes.”
Similar warnings have been issued by various countries in the past, but this joint report was described as unprecedented. The Chinese government has repeatedly rejected these claims of spying, calling them “pure fabrication and malicious slander.”
The Five Eyes agency said in a bulletin that Chinese spies are particularly targeting military personnel, including defense, diplomatic and intelligence professionals, as well as military personnel stationed in the Indo-Pacific region.
Journalists, think tank employees, and people with peripheral access to government data were also at risk.
The paper said the spies used an “aggressive online recruitment strategy” to pressure successful applicants to provide sensitive information to “unspecified clients with ties to the Chinese government.”
Those hired will be paid hundreds to thousands of dollars for each report, with potentially even higher rewards for information that becomes more sensitive, the bulletin said.
The United States has previously warned that Chinese intelligence services are using deception to target current and former U.S. government officials, and Britain’s MI5 security force warned lawmakers last November that Chinese agents were trying to spy on Congress.
