Linked In Spying

CHINA IS SPYING ON THE WEST USING LINKEDIN
BY ANTHONY CUTHBERTSON

Chinese spies nest.

China has denied using LinkedIn to infiltrate political and business circles in Germany, following claims from German intelligence services that 10,000 of its citizens were targeted by Chinese spies.
The German intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), made the allegations Sunday, suggesting that China was using fake profiles to connect with high-profile politicians and business leaders. 

The claims follow similar allegations of cyber espionage being undertaken by Russian spy agencies.
“Chinese intelligence services are active on networks like LinkedIn and have been trying for a while to extract information and find intelligence sources in this way,” said a spokesperson for Germany’s BfV intelligence agency.
“The infections are difficult to detect, since network connections between service providers and their customers aren’t suspicious. This gives the attacker an even better disguise than before.”
The method of infiltration that Chinese operatives used, according to the BfV, was to pose as academics, business consultants and policy experts on the business networking site. 

The BfV published the names of eight of the profiles it claimed were set up for the purpose of surveillance and infiltration, adding that it suspected there were many more.
One example of a suspicious account was that of Laeticia Chen, whose profile stated she was a manager at the “China Center of International Politics and Economy.” 

There was no evidence that Chen is a real person and her profile picture was borrowed from an online fashion catalogue, the intelligence agency said, according to German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.
The BfV feared that these accounts were used to contact relevant German nationals for the purpose of gathering information and to recruit informants.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry responded to the allegations on Monday, December 11, saying that such claims were damaging to relations between the two countries.
Earlier this year, Russian intelligence services came under scrutiny for their manipulation of LinkedIn as a surveillance tool, as well as their widely reported use of bots across other social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
The attraction of LinkedIn as a spying platform is that its users are predominantly white-collar workers in positions that could be exploited at high levels of business and government.
“The Russian special services are for sure exploiting LinkedIn to gather personal information on certain targets and possibly recruit and blackmail them,” a Kremlin expert told Newsweek in August. “They operate under fabricated identities and credentials, while Russian propaganda and trolling campaigns are widely applied on the platform.”

Chinese Spies Are Populating LinkedIn

German intelligence unmasks covert Chinese LinkedIn profiles
Reuters

Chinese spies nest

BERLIN -- Germany’s intelligence service has published the details of social network profiles which are fronts faked by Chinese intelligence to gather personal information about German officials and politicians.
The BfV domestic intelligence service took the unusual step of naming individual profiles it says are fake and fake organizations to warn public officials about the risk of leaking valuable personal information via social media.
“Chinese intelligence services are active on LinkedIn and have been trying for a while to extract information and find intelligence sources in this way,” including seeking data on users’ habits, hobbies and political interests.
Nine months of research had found that more than 10,000 German citizens had been contacted on the LinkedIn professional networking site by fake profiles disguised as headhunters, consultants, think-tankers or scholars, the BfV said.
“There could be a large number of target individuals and fake profiles that have not yet been identified,” they added.
Among the faked profiles whose details were published were that of “Rachel Li”, identified as a “headhunter” at “RiseHR”, and an “Alex Li”, a “Project Manager at Center for Sino-Europe Development Studies”.
Many of the profile pictures show stylish and visually appealing young men and women. 

The picture of “Laeticia Chen”, a manager at the “China Center of International Politics and Economy” was nicked from an online fashion catalogue, an official said.
A Reuters review of the profiles showed that some were connected to senior diplomats and politicians from several European countries. 

There was no way to establish whether contacts had taken place beyond the initial social media “add”.
The warning reflects growing concern in European and western intelligence circles at Chinese covert activities in their countries and follows warnings from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency over attempts by the economic giant’s security services to recruit U.S. citizens as agents.
The BfV invited concerned users to contact them if they encountered social media profiles that seemed suspect.