Chinese Spies Used Fake Facebook Profile To Friend NATO Officials

An anonymous reader writes "Late last year, senior British military officers, Defense Ministry officials, and other government officials were tricked into becoming Facebook friends with someone masquerading as United States Navy admiral James Stavridis. By doing so, they exposed their own personal information (such as private e-mail addresses, phone numbers, pictures, the names of family members, and possibly even the details of their movements), to unknown hackers."

Comments

Even CIA officers have families...

[SwedishChef]

A friend of mine who retired from CIA after 26 years once told me that his family was only happy for six of those years... and not six consecutive years. Cut off from family and friends back home and in contact only by letters and the occasional "home leave" of a month or two, he was trying to fit back in to the country he spent his life trying to serve (back in the days when the Agency was less of an operational force and more of an intelligence gathering organization). I can see how Facebook would have made their lives more enjoyable with all the family and friends news (and even minutia). I'm sure it's a security risk par excellance but I can certainly understand why they'd do it. And I can especially understand why a wife, stuck inside an apartment in Djibouti trying to order six months of canned food from Denmark, might.

I don't expect Slashdot readers to grok it, though.

Re:Anyone else not comfortable

[s.petry]

You obviously know little about how Social Engineering works if you believe that to be true. When I worked DOD it was recommended that we never post information to any Social network about where we worked, what we did for a living, who our co-workers were, etc.. This was not just for the protection of the Government, but also protection of your own family and friends.

I no longer work DOD, but when I did I did not post on anything including /. with my credentials.