ASIO warning that Chinese spies using LinkedIn and job ads to steal defence, government intelligence
Posing as consultants, the spies offer lucrative payments to government and military personnel.
Australia’s domestic intelligence agency ASIO and its Five Eyes partners are warning that Chinese spies are offering lucrative payments to government and military personnel as they attempt to steal sensitive secrets from the US and its allies.
In a rare joint bulletin, the intelligence agencies of Australia, the UK, the US, Canada, and New Zealand said Beijing was increasingly using professional networking sites and job platforms, including LinkedIn and Indeed, to gain access to classified information.
The 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.”
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.It warns 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 defence analysts.
“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 (HR) firms, and place online job advertisements for foreign policy and defence analysts (or similar).”
According to the bulletin, “successful candidates are pressured to provide ‘non-public’ information for unspecified clients who are associated with the Chinese government”.
Security clearance holders, particularly those who specialise in defence, foreign affairs and security and intelligence, are considered the main targets for Chinese spies, particularly “military personnel, including those stationed in the Indo-Pacific region, with knowledge of regional capabilities and general activities”.
“China’s military intelligence services ultimately seek to acquire privileged military, political and economic intelligence that can provide China with a strategic and tactical advantage over the Five Eyes,” the bulletin states.
The Five Eyes agencies claim Chinese intelligence officers typically approach targets first through job platforms such as LinkedIn or Indeed using fake recruiters, before conducting interviews and testing candidates with trial research tasks.
Recruits are then asked to write additional reports which require “more privileged information”, and eventually intelligence officers suggest their communications are moved to a more “secure” platform, such as encrypted messaging applications.
According to the Five Eyes bulletin, recruits then receive “anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars per report” and may be offered more money in return for increasingly sensitive information.
“Payment methods include third-party payment platforms, such as PayPal, Payoneer, Zelle, Skrill, and Wise, as well as Western Union, e-transfer and cryptocurrency.”
“Recruits will often be compensated by an account belonging to an individual they have not met as part of the recruitment process”.
Last year ASIO boss Mike Burgess detailed “relentless” acts of international espionage, including targeting of individuals on sites such as LinkedIn, warning foreign spy activity had cost Australia $12.5 billion in 2023-24.
“The obvious candidates are very active — I’ve previously named China, Russia and Iran — but many other countries are also targeting anyone and anything that could give them a strategic or tactical advantage, including sensitive but unclassified information,” Burgess said.
“Foreign intelligence services can obtain this material in person — convincing, coercing or seducing insiders to impart sensitive information — and through technology.”
Mr Burgess has regularly pleaded with Australians who hold a security clearance to not publicise it on social media sites like LinkedIn, declaring in 2023: “these people may as well add ‘high-value target’ to their profiles.”
In 2024 Beijing’s state security agency warned Chinese students with access to sensitive information against falling for “handsome men” or “beautiful women” that might entice them to spy for foreign powers.
The Ministry of State Security (MSS) cautioned that foreign spies were working to lure loyal Chinese to betray their country – often in lurid and unusual ways – since opening a WeChat account in 2023.
It has warned that foreign spies “have countless disguises, and can even change their gender” and called on citizens to “build 1.4 billion lines of defence” against threats to the country.
