LONDON — The United States and other nations in the Five Eyes intelligence partnership on Wednesday took the unusual step of issuing a joint warning that China is using LinkedIn and other job platforms to pry secret information from security professionals worldwide.
The alert reflects rising concern that China is using artificial intelligence and other emerging tools to flood career networking platforms with fake profiles and job offers targeting military officers, spies and others with access to classified or sensitive information, security officials said.
The rare “safeguarding” alert warned that “China’s military intelligence services are using an increasingly wide array of professional networking sites and online job platforms to target Five Eyes government and military personnel.”
Officials said it marked the first time that members of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group — the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — combined to issue a public warning about the expanding threat over networking platforms.
The group has only previously done rare joint statements on Chinese cyber threats and intellectual property theft.
Chinese operatives “pose as employees of private consultancies, think tanks or human resources firms and place online job advertisements” aimed at attracting those with access to state secrets, the alert stated.
The alert was drafted by the FBI, Britain’s MI5 domestic intelligence agency and their counterparts in other member countries. Several have issued similar but separate warnings in recent years.
Those who respond to China’s pitches come under mounting “pressure to provide ‘nonpublic’ information for unspecified clients,” often with financial incentives for sharing information then relayed to Chinese security services, according to the Five Eyes statement.
In October, MI5 cautioned members of the U.K. parliament that they were being targeted by spies from China, Russia and Iran through approaches on social media platforms, email “phishing” schemes and hacking attempts aimed at obtaining material that could be used to blackmail legislators.
The allegations of espionage have become a constant source of friction with Beijing even as the U.S., Britain and others seek ways to navigate their relationships with the rising global power.
President Donald Trump visited China last month accompanied by executives from U.S. technology companies and other industries that have frequently been targets of Chinese espionage, according to security officials.
Since the visit, Trump administration officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, have touted improving relations with Beijing.
British authorities recently approved China’s plans for a new “mega-embassy” in London even as U.K. police and prosecutors pursue investigations of high-profile spying cases.
Last month, a U.K. border force officer and Hong Kong trade official became the first suspects convicted of spying for China under a sweeping new British national security law.
The two men were charged with monitoring Hong Kong dissidents and democracy activists in the U.K. for years as part of a surveillance operation that also involved a former British Royal Marine who committed suicide in a London park after his arrest.
Last year, British prosecutors said legal complications forced them to abandon their case against two British nationals accused of spying on parliament.
The collapse of the case rippled through Britain’s security establishment. MI5 chief Ken McCallum, whose agency has warned about China’s used of LinkedIn and other platforms since at least 2021, publicly expressed frustration with the outcome.
The Five Eyes statement warned that Chinese agents make online payments to often unwitting security officials willing to produce “reports” that they are led to believe are for think tanks or other innocuous entities.
Some of those caught have faced “criminal prosecutions, job losses and security-clearance revocation,” according to the statement.
Cate Cadell and Perry Stein in Washington contributed to this report.
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