US and ‘Five Eyes’ allies warn of LinkedIn China spying threat

The US and its “Five Eyes” intelligence partners issued what they said was an unprecedented joint notice warning about attempts by Chinese spies to use websites such as LinkedIn to recruit assets.“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,” according to a joint statement by the FBI, Britain’s MI5 security service and the domestic intelligence agencies of Australia, Canada and New Zealand.“These actors use an aggressive online recruitment strategy whereby intelligence officers or their affiliates pose as employees of private consultancies, think tanks or human resources firms, and place online job s for foreign policy and defence analysts,” the agencies said.