By Gordon Corera
Security correspondent, BBC News
A Chinese spy is alleged to have used LinkedIn to contact thousands of British officials and lure them into handing over state secrets.
The Times said that the spy worked for Beijing’s Ministry of State Security and used a series of false names.
The MI5 has previously warned that spies are using LinkedIn to target those with access to confidential information.
The Chinese Embassy has been contacted for comment.
A parliamentary report also warned that the aim was sometimes to lure people to China and then compromise them.
The alleged spy is said to have used several names over a period of five years. The most prominent used was Robin Zhang,
During that time it is claimed he offered British and other officials business opportunities, with an endgame of gaining sensitive information from them.
He is also said to have offered a recruitment consultant up to £8,000 each time they handed over details of someone who worked for the intelligence services.
Some of the targets were said to have been offered trips to China and paid speaking engagements.
Others were asked to provide reports, which the alleged spy would then use to request more confidential documents with the aim of entrapment.
A recent report by the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee on China detailed the potential ways in which such contacts could be exploited.
In evidence to the committee, an officer from MI6, the UK’s secret intelligence service, suggested this could involve trying to compromise targets who agreed to travel.
“Once they get you back to China, if you have shown vulnerability to them, they will absolutely do all the usual gamut of blackmail,” the agent said.
They added this could include “honey-trapping, where they try and catch you in a sexually compromising position. They will do all of that”.
The investigation by the Times says “Robin Zhang” is believed to work inside China.
It says that those who he engaged with – who worked in a variety of areas including the military and think-tanks – often found him “pushy”.
The company details Zhang provided were “vague”, the Times added.
Zhang’s main account is now believed to have been deleted.
There have been growing warnings in recent years about the risks of LinkedIn being used for espionage.
In 2021, Britain’s domestic security service MI5 said at least 10,000 UK nationals had been contacted by fake profiles linked to hostile states in the previous five years.
“Malicious profiles” are being used on “an industrial scale”, said the security service’s head, Ken McCallum. The service launched a Think Before You Link campaign about the risks.
Germany and the US are among other states that have also issued similar warnings.
In 2019, a former CIA officer, Kevin Mallory, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for passing secrets to China following contact on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn says it actively seeks out signs of state-sponsored activity and removes fake accounts.
