In the wake of an extended and disruptive government shutdown that multiplied concerns about paycheck and job security, the Army’s head of intelligence is issuing a stark warning to soldiers: beware flattering offers on LinkedIn.
While Lt. Gen. Anthony Hale’s message to the force did not actually mention specific social media platforms by name, he warned specifically of malicious efforts to contact and exploit active-duty soldiers and Army veterans under the pretext of professional networking.
The 43-day government shutdown, which led to unpaid furlough status for about 750,000 government employees and drove paycheck uncertainty and work delays for uniformed service members, presents a particular opportunity for enemies to influence frustrated and disaffected Army personnel, Hale indicated.
Foreign intelligence entities are online, posing as consulting firms, corporate recruiters, think tanks, and other seemingly legitimate companies,” Hale wrote in a message dated Nov. 13 and disseminated this week. “Especially in the context of the recent lapse in appropriations and government shutdown, our adversaries are looking online to identify individuals seeking new employment opportunities, expressing dissatisfaction or describing financial insecurity.”
These agents, he wrote, may offer jobs or “easy” money to soldiers and veterans in exchange for white papers or privileged info, “with the intent to collect sensitive information for the benefit of their country at the cost of our own.”
A spokesman for Army Counterintelligence Command, Adam Lowe, confirmed that the service was seeing “a massive uptick” in these kinds of exploitation attempts, noting that this was the second warning Hale had issued to the entire Army force, following an initial warning in May 2024.
“This latest one came at the very end of the shutdown when soldiers and Army civilians — many of whom have or had access to TS//SCI — were put in precarious financial situations,” Lowe said in an email. “It’s also at a time when online political discourse [has] gotten worse, and adversaries take note of people with access expressing discontentment and look to exploit that.”
While Lowe said that “active pursuit of the adversary” limited specifics he could share about what trends intel officials were observing, he noted that the Army had recorded 25 arrests and more than 650 national security investigations since Counterintelligence Command activated four years ago. Both numbers, he said, represented “significant increases.”
To date this year, Lowe said, seven arrests of soldiers charged with crimes including espionage and information sharing with foreign agents have been made public.
Hale’s new message highlighted the arrest and conviction of Korbein Schultz, a 25-year-old former Army intelligence analyst sentenced in April to seven years in prison for “conspiring to collect and transmit national defense information, unlawfully exporting controlled information to China, and accepting bribes in exchange of sensitive, non-public U.S. government information,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
According to DOJ releases, Schultz was contacted in 2022 by a likely agent of the Chinese government, nicknamed Conspirator A, “through a freelance web-based work platform shortly after the defendant received his Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) clearance.”
“Masquerading as a client from a geopolitical consulting firm, Conspirator A solicited the defendant to produce detailed analyses on U.S. military capabilities and planning, particularly in relation to Taiwan and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.”
Ultimately, according to the DOJ, Schultz accessed and transmitted at least 92 government documents to Conspirator A, pocketing about $42,000 in return.
“Current and former federal employees must be aware of these approaches and understand the potential consequences of engaging,” Hale wrote. “If the offer seems flattering, urgent, exclusive, or too good to be true, it probably is.”
The message encouraged soldiers to report targeting attempts to their local counterintelligence office or to a dedicated hotline: 1-800-CALL-SPY (1-800-225-5779).
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