14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft’s business social networking service LinkedIn has allegedly been used by China to recruit German spies with a number of fake accounts that were impersonating young professionals.
German intelligence agency BfV revealed that it discovered several accounts that were used by China to get in touch with high-profile German officials, possibly in an attempt to recruit them as informants. Targets included politicians, they said, as China’s objective was to infiltrate into state departments and agencies.
While neither China or the Beijing intelligence commented on the claims, BfV head Hans-Georg Maassen pointed to two different LinkedIn accounts that were used to contact German officials.
One of the accounts was named “Allen Liu” and was listed on LinkedIn as a human resources manager at an economic consultancy firm, while a second profile allegedly belonged to someone named “Lily Wu” who was working at a think tank in eastern China.
“This is a broad-based attempt to infiltrate in particular parliaments, ministries and government agencies,” Maassen said in a statement.
Microsoft: Reported accounts already banned
The German intelligence agency asked LinkedIn users who have been contacted by suspicious LinkedIn accounts that could be involved in the recruitment of cyberspies to report them to the police and get in touch with local officials.
Microsoft says it has already banned the accounts on LinkedIn, though no other specifics were provided as to how many fake profiles have been reported and confirmed as being used for these attempts to infiltrate German politics.
“We have restricted the accounts in question, as part of our ongoing investigation, for violating our terms of service. The safety and security of our platform is always a top priority. We do not provide details on specific accounts,” a LinkedIn spokesperson was quoted as saying.
Microsoft purchased the social networking service in June 2016 for a record $26.2 billion after a bidding war with several companies, including Salesforce.
