The recruiter messaging you on LinkedIn may not be a recruiter. The job may not exist.

In early June, the Five Eyes intelligence partnership agencies (ASIO, CSIS, the FBI, MI5 and NZSIS) released a joint bulletin, Safeguarding Our Secrets. It warns that Chinese intelligence officers are posing as recruiters and consultants for fake companies based outside China, using professional networking sites and job platforms to reach people with access to sensitive information.

The method is pretty routine, patient, and ordinary. The approach has evolved from large-scale cold-messaging of targets to posting job ads and letting unwitting targets apply. Resumes are ranked by how likely the applicant is to hold useful access to information of interest. In interviews, candidates are asked about their work, their government contacts or military service (among other areas of interest). 

The next step is a request to write a short paid report on a topic of strategic interest to the handlers in China. Payment to these unwitting "consultants" runs through popular payment platforms and cryptocurrency...often from an account belonging to someone the recruit has never met.

The target set is wider than security clearance holders. It includes business leaders, academics, journalists, think tank staff and people with seemingly peripheral access. The accompanying guidance released by Five Eyes bullet is explicit that the information sought may not be classified at all. However, an individual's knowledge-base and network become pieces of a larger picture once they are assembled with other information collected by Chinese spies. 

The pattern is consistent and concerning. The PRC appears to not be pursuing one dramatic breach. They collect small, seemingly legitimate-looking pieces and combine them with other pieces and forms of intelligence. 

The defense against this activity should include educating your teams about this specific threat/methodology and understanding what about your work is valuable to others, and being harder to target and assemble.