BERLIN (AP) \u2014 The head of Germany\u2019s domestic intelligence agency warned Sunday that China allegedly is using social networks to try to cultivate lawmakers and other officials as sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hans-Georg Maassen said his agency, known by its German acronym BfV, believes more than 10,000 Germans have been targeted by Chinese intelligence agents posing as consultants, headhunters or researchers, primarily on the social networking site LinkedIn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is a broad-based attempt to infiltrate in particular parliaments, ministries and government agencies,\u201d Maassen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition, Chinese hackers increasingly are launching attacks on European companies through trusted suppliers, he alleged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The BfV established a task force early this year which examined the use of fake profiles on social networks over nine months. The agency provided journalists with what it said were eight of the most prolific fake profiles on LinkedIn used by alleged Chinese spies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Using names such as Lily Wu, Laeticia Chen or Alex Li, the profiles sport impressive resumes, hundreds of contacts and attractive pictures of young professionals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The agency also named six organizations it alleged Chinese spies use to cloak their approaches, including one called the Association France Euro-Chine and another named Global View Strategic Consulting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Messages seeking comment from the organizations weren\u2019t immediately returned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maassen warned that Chinese cybergroups also were using so-called \u201csupply-chain attacks\u201d to get around companies\u2019 online defenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Such attacks target IT workers and others who work for trusted service providers to send malicious software into the networks of organizations the attackers are interested in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe infections are difficult to detect, since network connections between service providers and their customers aren\u2019t suspicious,\u201d the BfV said. \u201cThis gives the attacker an even better disguise than before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Frank Jordans contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The head of Germany\u2019s domestic intelligence agency warned Sunday that China allegedly is using social networks to try to cultivate lawmakers and other officials as sources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":47677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[106,29,32],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3063],"class_list":["post-18851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-brief","category-home","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"VPJJ4QYFWBBTDDRUQ3L6BLGV7A","arc_canonical_url":"\/international\/2017\/12\/11\/german-intelligence-warns-of-increased-chinese-cyberspying\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n