TO joint public warning issued by “five eyes”, an alliance between the intelligence agencies of five English-speaking countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States, says spies linked to China are using job boards to extract classified information or other secrets from their targets.
The report claims that China’s military intelligence operation is finding people on places like LinkedIn, Indeed and Upwork, and offering what is essentially casual work, but then pressuring applicants to do increasingly sketchy things to keep their paychecks, in this case potentially committing espionage.
Five Eyes claims that those who accepted these jobs have already been subject to “criminal prosecutions, loss of jobs, and revocation of security clearances.” The report warns of the possibility of “prosecution under national laws such as those related to espionage.”
It’s a disturbing new overlap between being scammed and being recruited as a leaker, which, while it may give you a long prison sentence or even the death penalty for crimes against his country, at least he has a history of paying well. For example, before being imprisoned for the rest of his lifeFBI agent and KGB mole Robert Hanssen, for example, received $1.4 million, according to the FBI.
By contrast, information sources obtained through online job platforms fetch “between a few hundred and several thousand dollars per report,” according to Five Eyes, although the amounts can be higher for “increasingly sensitive information.” It’s depressing to imagine what people supposedly reveal in exchange for what, at best, seem like four-figure payments.
These job postings are attached to fake companies, supposedly based in countries other than China, seeking analysts with foreign policy or defense experience. The targets apparently include people with military and intelligence jobs who would merit clearance, along with “academics, journalists, freelance writers (and) think tank employees,” the report says. There is an interview in which subjects are asked questions intended to determine what type of access they might have. They are then asked to write mundane reports on a trial basis, on topics such as “China’s bilateral relations, the Indo-Pacific region and related defense issues, or international trade.”
So the report says things can get worse. Requesters are told that the client needs something a little juicier and then communications can move to an encrypted chat platform.
If you’re familiar with lesser scams on places like Upwork, this may sound familiar. Workers on Upwork are You are urged to never migrate communications to a different platform.where job board rules and guidelines cannot protect them. In some cases, an Upwork scam can be relatively benign: an attempt to e.g. avoid paying a freelance writer. Meanwhile, the Five Eyes report states: “Certain types of data can put the lives of frontline military or other personnel at risk, can weaken our economic prosperity, and allow interference in our democratic processes.”
It is worth pausing for a moment on the gray areas mentioned in the report. It notes that requesters may not have actual access to secrets, but that “even unclassified information on government policies or on military strategies, capabilities and facilities can be collected and combined with more sensitive reports to form a comprehensive operational picture.”
If one accepts that the report’s analysis is sound and that this is really a single China-based spy operation aimed at obtaining military secrets, one would hope that not everyone involved in it will be fired as a government contractor, lose their security clearance, or be prosecuted. As the report says, some of this problematic information is unclassified and it appears that some of these applicants are simply writing boring essays on international trade for a few hundred dollars.
Maybe the Five Eyes members are the ones who need a wake-up call here. These are tough times, so it might be a good idea to pay people well enough that they don’t feel the need to look for side jobs on Indeed and LinkedIn. The safety of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia may depend on analysts getting some big raises.
