"Over the past year, waves of federal layoffs have left thousands of government employees and contractor clients suddenly out of work. For foreign intelligence services, that disruption has opened new opportunities. With more former U.S. officials seeking employment or freelance work - often in specialized national security fields - adversaries, namely China, have stepped in, posing as consulting firms, research groups and recruiters."
"The efforts aren't tied to traditional signals intelligence or hacking. They've instead relied on human contact: conversations that begin over email or job platforms and evolve into targeted efforts to extract sensitive information. It's a form of classic human intelligence - or HUMINT, in spy terms - adapted to the everyday churn of online job hunting that's become all too familiar to thousands of Washingtonians and others swept up in the wave of federal layoffs."
Waves of federal layoffs left thousands of government employees and contractor clients suddenly unemployed, creating a pool of former officials seeking work. Foreign intelligence services, primarily China, have posed as consulting firms, research groups and recruiters to approach those individuals. The recruitment relies on human contact initiated over email and job platforms rather than signals intelligence or hacking. Tradecraft includes fake websites, staged interviews and plausible payment offers to build credibility and extract sensitive information. Justice Department indictments in 2025 described multiple cases where current or former U.S. personnel transmitted classified or sensitive data after virtual recruitment.
Read at Nextgov.com
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