The Army is warning soldiers to steer clear of job offers and other financial opportunities that may be too good to be true, or seem suspicious, as foreign agents are using social media as a means to contact troops and civilian employees to gather critical information.
“Foreign adversaries are increasing the use of social media and seemingly legitimate job offers to elicit sensitive information,” a memo to the force said last week.
The warning comes as adversaries, particularly China, are significantly building their footprint online. That’s being done through Chinese companies expanding their business influence in the tech community and disinformation campaigns being waged online. But one of the newer concerns from Pentagon officials is Beijing conducting subtle and sophisticated exploitation of troops, their families and civilian officials in the Defense Department.
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The Army warned of online networking sites such as LinkedIn, Reddit and Discord being hot spots for adversaries to target individuals with tactical information, defense contract knowledge or a background in technology development, or information on combat-essential resources.
“Requests initiate with simple ‘getting to know you’ questions such as ‘where do you work, how old are you and what are your hobbies,’ and other non-alerting topics,” the memo…
