China is reportedly using Linkedin to hire spies overseas
By Caoimhe Toman
Date: Wednesday 28 Aug 2019
(Sharecast News) - Chinese spies have reportedly been using Linkedin to seek out recruits overseas, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
"We've seen China's intelligence services doing this on a mass scale. Instead of dispatching spies to the U.S. to recruit a single target, it's more efficient to sit behind a computer in China and send out friend requests to thousands of targets using fake profiles," William R. Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, told the NY Times.
Linkedin, which is the only social network not blocked by the Chinese government, is ideal for the recruitment of new spies as it is a platform where millions of people are looking for jobs.
Typical targets include academics and people outside China many of whom have just left government jobs, according to the Times. The spies contact them pretending to be corporate headhunters and offer them a paid trip to China to discuss opportunities to work as a consultant.
Nicole Leverich, a LinkedIn spokeswoman said the company already searches for and removes fake accounts.
"We enforce our policies, which are very clear," she said.
"The creation of a fake account or fraudulent activity with an intent to mislead or lie to our members is a violation of our terms of service."
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