German Spy Agency Warns of Chinese LinkedIn Espionage

BBC ^ | 10 December 2017

[nickcarraway]

China is using fake LinkedIn profiles to gather information on German officials and politicians, the German intelligence agency (BfV) has said.

The agency alleges that Chinese intelligence used the networking site to target at least 10,000 Germans, possibly to recruit them as informants.

It released a number of fake profiles allegedly used for this purpose.

BfV head Hans-Georg Maassen said the accounts show China's efforts to subvert top-level German politics.

"This is a broad-based attempt to infiltrate in particular parliaments, ministries and government agencies," he said.

China has denied similar allegations of cyber espionage in the past and has not yet responded to the German allegation.

The BfV published eight of what they say are the most active profiles used to contact German LinkedIn users. They are designed to look enticing to other users, and promote young Chinese professionals -who do not exist.

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

I got a request from someone in China to be my LinkedIn connection. It seemed peculiar and I ignored it.

[Falconspeed]

I used Linkedin for five years and stopped. Too much spam and deception.

[Cowboy Bob]

A large portion of LinkedIn’s profiles are fake.

[Gene Eric]

LinkedIn makes an effort to advance legitimate links. Ultimately, it’s up to the LI subscriber to decide who gets linked. Seems like a basic process to me.

[Cowboy Bob]

I have a small company (less tha 20 employees). Three of us are on LinkedIn. But if you do a search of my company's name on LinkedIn, you will find that there are over 60,000 profiles of people who say they work for my company.

I wrote to LikedIn to alert them to this. Their response was "it's not our problem."

[Gene Eric]

Well, that’s not right, and LinkedIn shouldn’t be indifferent about it.