This allegation was reported exclusively by Reuters, as William Evanina, the U.S. counter-intelligence chief, admitted in an interview that intelligence and law enforcement officials have told LinkedIn, about China's "super aggressive" efforts on the site.
The man who also heads the U.S. National Counter-Intelligence and Security Center was speaking out in part because of the case of Kevin Mallory, a retired CIA officer convicted in June of conspiring to commit espionage for China.
Mallory was struggling financially when he was contacted via a LinkedIn message in February 2017 by a Chinese national posing as a headhunter, according to court records and trial evidence.
According to the U.S. government's case against him, Mallory, who is fluent in Chinese, agreed to sell U.S. defense secrets even though he assessed his Chinese contacts to be intelligence officers. He is due to be sentenced in September and could face life in prison.
Spying the U.S. through LinkedIn
LinkedIn "is a very good site," Evanina said. "But it makes for a great venue for foreign adversaries to target not only individuals in the government, formers, former CIA folks, but academics, scientists, engineers, anything they want. It's the ultimate playground for collection."
Reportedly, some current and former officials post significant details about their government work history online - even sometimes naming classified intelligence units that the government does not publicly acknowledge.
Evanina said this type of Chinese espionage activities, includes contacting thousands of LinkedIn members at a time, but he declined to tell the details, such as how many fake accounts U.S. intelligence had discovered, how many Americans may have been contacted and how much success China has had in the recruitment drive.
Chinese intelligence uses bribery or phony business propositions in its recruitment efforts. Academics and scientists, for example, are offered payment for scholarly or professional papers and, in some cases, are later asked or pressured to pass on U.S. government or commercial secrets.
They said the targets include experts in fields such as supercomputing, nuclear energy, nanotechnology, semiconductors, stealth technology, healthcare, hybrid grains, seeds and green energy.
U.S. officials said China's Ministry of State Security has "co-optees", who are individuals who are not employed by intelligence agencies but work with them - set up fake accounts to approach potential recruits.
"I recently saw that Twitter is cancelling, I don't know, millions of fake accounts, and our request would be maybe LinkedIn could go ahead and be part of that," said Evanina, who heads the U.S. National Counter-Intelligence and Security Center.
LinkedIn and China responded
LinkedIn's head of trust and safety, Paul Rockwell, confirmed the company had been talking to U.S. law enforcement agencies about Chinese espionage efforts.
"We are doing everything we can to identify and stop this activity," Rockwell told Reuters, who also said that they do not sit down and wait for request like this, but also "actively identify bad actors and remove bad accounts" based on the information they uncover and "intelligence from a variety of sources including government agencies."
Rockwell declined to provide numbers of fake accounts associated with Chinese intelligence agencies or any details. He emphasized that the company takes "very prompt action to restrict accounts and mitigate and stop any essential damage that can happen".
China's foreign ministry disputed Evanina's allegations.
"We do not know what evidence the relevant U.S. officials you cite have to reach this conclusion. What they say is complete nonsense and has ulterior motives," the ministry said in a statement, as cited by Reuters.
Source: Reuters