Canadian intelligence services are warning the population against Chinese spies who are currently trying to recruit collaborators on the LinkedIn social network through bogus job offers.
What there is to know
- Since 2021, Canadian counterintelligence has openly claimed that the Chinese regime is trying to steal Canadian technology.
- Several people have been charged in Canada and the United States in connection with the illegal transfer of trade secrets in recent years.
- According to Canadian authorities, Chinese spies are currently using the LinkedIn social network to target Canadians who hold sensitive information and attempt to contact them.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the federal counter-intelligence agency, issued a social media warning about the move, noting that the maneuver targets Canadians who are in China for various reasons, but also others that are outside of China.
According to CSIS, Chinese spies use intermediaries called “targeting agents” who scour the LinkedIn social network based on users’ career paths and employment opportunities.
“They’re looking for people who are actively trying to find work in strategic sectors or who have sought-after credentials,” CSIS said.
These intermediaries present themselves as human resources recruiters or expert consultants. After a first contact on LinkedIn, they invite their target to continue the exchanges on another platform, such as WeChat, WhatsApp or by email, say the Canadian intelligence services. They are then offered a professional opportunity related to their skills, without revealing to them who they are really working for or for what purpose.
Targets are paid to write reports for the client’s “consultants”. They could also be invited to meetings with the “client”. The expert and the client are in fact intelligence agents.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service in its public warning
“New recruits then begin to receive payments in exchange for confidential and protected information of interest to the People’s Republic of China,” the warning continues.
The universities targeted
A spokesman for CSIS, Eric Balsam, refused to quantify the extent of the phenomenon and to specify since when the Canadian counterintelligence services have been concerned about it, when The Press asked him about it.
“Given the importance of protecting our sensitive activities, techniques, methods and sources of intelligence, there are significant restrictions on what information I can share with you,” Mr. Balsam explained.
However, he said that universities are particularly targeted by this kind of foreign campaign.
Several Canadian academic institutions are world leaders in various economic, technological and research sectors of interest to foreign military and intelligence actors.
Eric Balsam, spokesperson for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service
Mr. Balsam also recalled that recent public reports from CSIS have pointed out that the Chinese government is using people without specific training related to the intelligence world, for example “scientists and business people”, to get their hands on on technological secrets abroad.
“Having said that, let’s be clear: the threat does not come from the Chinese, but from the Chinese Communist Party and the security apparatus which is executing a strategy aimed at making geopolitical gains on all fronts (economics, technology, politics and army). Thus, the Communist Party exploits all elements of state power at its disposal to carry out activities that directly threaten the sovereignty and national security of Canada,” the spokesperson said.
Following the Americans
It is rare for Canadian intelligence services to specifically identify a company in their warnings, as they do with LinkedIn, owned by giant Microsoft.
In this case, CSIS is following in the footsteps of the United States. In 2019, Kevin Mallory, a CIA retiree who was contacted by a recruiter serving Beijing on LinkedIn, was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a US court for selling defense sector secrets. Shortly after his arrest, a senior US Justice Department official also underscored the scale of the problem by specifically mentioning LinkedIn, where agents serving the Chinese regime apparently contacted thousands of targets at once.
This senior American official, William Evanina, had specified that LinkedIn was “a victim”, but had expressed hope that the company would intervene in the future in a muscular way to curb hostile activities for the benefit of China.
In Quebec, former employees of Hydro-Quebec and the Canadian Space Agency are awaiting trial after being arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for illegally aiding China while on duty in Canadian institutions.