Speaker 1: We'll come back everybody. Today, we're looking at the LinkedIn trap.
Speaker 1: You've probably heard some stories about it, but it's not
Speaker 1: a hypothetical threat. This is not some analysts somewhere connecting
Speaker 1: dots on a whiteboard, five of the most powerful intel
Speaker 1: agencies on the planet stepping out of the shadows together
Speaker 1: and saying this is happening. On June third, twenty twenty six,
Speaker 1: To five Eyes Alliance released a joint security bulletin titled
Speaker 1: Safeguarding are Secrets. Five nations, five domestic spy agencies, all
Speaker 1: five together at the same time. So this is a
Speaker 1: serious problem. They're telling it because they need you to know.
Speaker 1: So what are you talking about? Anyway? China's military intelligence
Speaker 1: services are using an increasingly wide array of professional networking
Speaker 1: sites and online job platforms to target Five Eyes, government
Speaker 1: and military personnel, and anyone with access to classified or
Speaker 1: privileged information. The platforms include LinkedIn, Indeed and upwork places
Speaker 1: where you go to find a job, a better opportunity life,
Speaker 1: the place where a message in your inbox feels professional, legitimate.
Speaker 1: Here's where the operation actually works. Intelligence operators pose as
Speaker 1: private consulting firms think tanks or recruitment agencies to attract
Speaker 1: foreign policy experts, defense analysts, military personnel. They build out profiles,
Speaker 1: they create fake companies that look real. They post job listings,
Speaker 1: They reach out to you by name, and they have
Speaker 1: done their homework. They know where you work, where your
Speaker 1: clearest level is, what your specialty is. They ask at first,
Speaker 1: is never anything that sounds like espionage. They want to
Speaker 1: report an analysis, a brief in some policy area, something
Speaker 1: that sounds like consulting work, something that sounds like a
Speaker 1: side hustle. Recruits are often offered payments ranging from hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of dollars for reports through research assignments, but
Speaker 1: some compensation reportedly made through cryptocurrency. And then it escalates.
Speaker 1: Once you've taken the money, you've written that first report,
Speaker 1: you're in and you may not even realize. As they
Speaker 1: get the request and more specific the pressure builds. The
Speaker 1: target is not just what you know today, it is access.
Speaker 1: Think about who they are going after. The types of
Speaker 1: workers who may be targeted include security clearance holders, military personnel, professors,
Speaker 1: policy advisors, journalists. And here's the part that is not
Speaker 1: Goet talked about enough. This is not a new playbook
Speaker 1: China has been running this version for years. What is
Speaker 1: the need? What is new is the scale. The bulletin
Speaker 1: describes a tactic as a scaled, methodical, methodical approach to
Speaker 1: identifying sources through seemingly legitimate unemployment opportunities. The Five Eyes
Speaker 1: are not sounding this alarm because they caught a couple
Speaker 1: of amateur spies. They're sounding it because the operation has
Speaker 1: produced results. The warning stated that such activities have in
Speaker 1: some cases resulted in criminal prosecutions, job terminations, and the
Speaker 1: loss of security clearances among individuals in five by countries.
Speaker 1: And here's what I fought. I've said directly, certain types
Speaker 1: of data can place the lives of frontline military or
Speaker 1: other personnel at risk and can weaken economic prosperity. They're
Speaker 1: not just talking about firing you, and they're talking about prison.
Speaker 1: So what do you actually do with this information? Well,
Speaker 1: knowing is the first thing. Verify everything as the second.
Speaker 1: If someone reaches out to you on LinkedIn offering consulting
Speaker 1: work related to your professional background, especially anything touching government
Speaker 1: or defense or policy, assume nothing is what it appears
Speaker 1: to be. Look at the company. Call the company, not
Speaker 1: the number they give you. Find it independently. If it
Speaker 1: does not check out, disengage next reporting to the five eyes,
Speaker 1: the FBI, five csis ASIO, and ZSIS. They all have
Speaker 1: mechanisms for reporting suspicious contact. Use them. One report might
Speaker 1: connect the dot that breaks the open an entire network.
Speaker 1: Talk to the people around you, your colleagues, your teammates,
Speaker 1: your family members, who hold clear A bulletin is public
Speaker 1: for a reason, writes the Security minister. Urge anyone who
Speaker 1: could be a potential target to be on guard for
Speaker 1: signs of online targeting. Bottom line is this the five
Speaker 1: eyes denied issue join public warnings lightly. The fact that
Speaker 1: they did means the threat environment is escalated to the
Speaker 1: point where silence is no longer an option. China's military
Speaker 1: intelligence is running a campaign to turn clear personnel and
Speaker 1: national security professionals into unwinning intelligence assets. So know the threat,
Speaker 1: trust your gut, report what you see.