Sunday, December 10, 2017

Chinese Spies Posing as Think Tankers to Acquire Information



Here is what the Associated Press (AP) is reporting:

The head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency is warning that China is using social networks to try to cultivate sources of information.
Hans-Georg Maassen said in comments released Sunday that his agency is so far aware of 10,000 German citizens targeted by China, in particular politicians and members of government agencies. Using primarily LinkedIn, Maassen said China’s spy agency has established multiple fake profiles to pose as headhunting agencies, consulting firms, think-tanks or researchers.
China has also been using so-called “supply-chain attacks” in cyberspace, whereby they target IT workers and others to find a backdoor into the networks of organizations they’re interested in, Maassen said.

Here is a recent Think Tank Watch post on a Chinese think tank used to recruit a US spy.

Here is a post from 2014 about Chinese hackers targeting Middle East experts at think tanks.