Foreign adversaries, including Russia and China, are attacked to government workers who have been fired in the middle of the Trump administration attempt to reduce control of recruiting as spies, according to new intelligence.
“The new intelligence indicates that agents from China, Russia and other countries have put their gaze to recently dismissed test workers, or those with security authorizations, hoping to obtain valuable information about the critical infrastructure of the United States or national security interests,” according to intelligence distributed by the United States Coast Guard to its workforce.
“These foreign intelligence officers actively seek in LinkedIn, Tiktok, Reddit and the Chinese social media site Xiaohongshu, known as Rednote, for potential sources,” he added. “In at least one case, a foreign agent was told to create a company profile on LinkedIn, publish a list of jobs and actively track federal employees who indicated that they were” open for work. “
The Coast Guard did not develop intelligence, but distributed it as a warning to the officials of the coast guard around the world.
In this archive photo of February 14, 2025, protesters, in support of federal workers outside the Department of Health and Human Services, in Washington, DC
Mark Schiefelbein/AP, file
“Publishing about your frustration, a state as a recently dismissed employee or any other information sensitive to OPSEC could make it a goal,” the notice said. “Our adversaries have been successful in annoying and unhappy government workers during past permits.”
Military members can be attractive objectives, according to intelligence, due to the information to which they can have access.
The notice occurs when two active service soldiers were recently accused of conspiring to sell classified material to China.
The Coast Guard said that a revealing signal of foreign agents trying to recruit former government officials is something that is too good to be true, and points out that it is probably.
“Your contact can praise or focus too much on your skills/experience, especially if your government affiliation is known,” he said in the notice, adding that a sense of urgency could also be an indicator.
