A fake Facebook account set up in the name of NATO’s supreme allied commander was allegedly used by spies in an attempt to swipe personal information from military personnel and various other top secret information, according to multiple news reports published over the weekend.
According to Nick Hopkins of The Observer, falsified social networking pages supposedly belonging to Admiral James Stavridis is believed to have been coordinated by Chinese espionage agents who had hoped to trick his friends and family members into revealing private information — either about him or about themselves.
Telegraph Investigations Editor Jason Lewis reported Saturday that senior British military officers and members of the UK Ministry of Defense are believed to have been among those to accept “friend requests” from a fake Stavridis Facebook account.
“They thought they had become genuine friends of NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander — but instead every personal detail on Facebook, including private email addresses, phone numbers and pictures were able to be harvested,” he continued, adding that while officials are “reluctant” to identify the source of the espionage attempt, that the Telegraph “has learned that in classified briefings, military officers and diplomats were told the evidence pointed to ‘state-sponsored individuals in China.’”
Comments