An alleged Chinese spy is accused of leveraging LinkedIn to approach thousands of British officials, enticing them to share classified information. According to The Times, the
spy purportedly operated under various false identities and was affiliated with Beijing's Ministry of State Security. MI5 had previously cautioned that spies were exploiting LinkedIn to target individuals with access to confidential data.
The Chinese Embassy has been contacted for response. A parliamentary report also warned that the objective sometimes involved luring individuals to China and subsequently compromising them. Reportedly using multiple aliases over a five-year period, the alleged spy's prominent pseudonym was Robin Zhang.
During this timeframe, it is claimed that he extended business prospects to British and other officials, with the ultimate aim of extracting sensitive information from them. The alleged spy is also said to have offered a recruitment consultant up to £8,000 for each submission of intelligence personnel details. Certain targets were allegedly enticed with trips to China and paid speaking engagements.
Others were solicited to provide reports, which the purported spy would exploit to request further confidential documents with the intention of ensnaring them. A recent report by the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee on China outlined the potential ways in which such interactions could be exploited.
In testimony to the committee, an MI6 officer, a member of the UK's secret intelligence service, suggested that this could involve compromising targets who agreed to travel. "Once they get you back to China, if you have shown vulnerability to them, they will absolutely do all the usual gamut of blackmail," the agent said. This could encompass "honey-trapping, where they try to catch you in a sexually compromising position.
They will do all of that," the agent added. The Times' investigation states that "Robin Zhang" is believed to operate within China. It notes that many of those he engaged with, who were employed in various sectors such as the military and think tanks, often found his approach to be "pushy." The provided company details by Zhang were reportedly "ambiguous," as per The Times. Zhang's primary account is now believed to have been deleted.
In recent years, concerns have grown over the susceptibility of LinkedIn to espionage. In 2021, the UK's domestic security service MI5 disclosed that at least 10,000 British nationals had been approached by bogus profiles linked to adversarial nations within the preceding five years.
"Malicious profiles" are being employed on "an industrial scale," stated Ken McCallum, the head of the security service. A campaign, "Think Before You Link," was launched by the service to raise awareness about the associated risks.
Germany and the US are among other nations that have also issued similar alerts. In 2019, Kevin Mallory, a former CIA officer, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for transmitting secrets to China after initial contact on LinkedIn. LinkedIn asserts that it actively identifies signs of state-sponsored activity and eradicates fake accounts. Photo by jaydeep_, Wikimedia commons.