The Chinese Communist Party has been using stolen data to track U.S. CIA agents doing sensitive work in Africa and Europe since around 2013, according to an extensive Foreign Policy investigation that included interviews with more than three dozen current and former U.S. intelligence and national security officials.
Three former U.S. officials told Foreign Policy that in some cases, the Communist Party’s surveillance began once CIA officials removed control of their passports. In some cases, they noted, the surveillance was so blatant that U.S. intelligence believed the CCP wanted them to know that CIA agents had been identified as a way to undermine its mission. And sometimes the surveillance was more covert and could only be detected through U.S. counter-surveillance technology.
One source said the CIA has been using China’s growing influence overseas to meet and recruit intelligence sources. A former U.S. official told the media that the CIA recruits “Russians and Chinese in Africa” and that the Chinese Communist Party “knows this.
Foreign Policy notes that the Communist Party’s tracking of U.S. agents may be a response to the recruitment campaign.
How did the Chinese Communist Party know the identity of these U.S. agents? CIA officials believe it may be related to data stolen by the CCP’s cyber espionage campaign, in which the CCP steals private information about individuals, including travel and health data and records of U.S. government personnel, to identify covert events.
It’s not random or generic, according to the report. “This is a big data problem.”
William Evaner, the top U.S. counterintelligence official, told the media that the Chinese Communist Party “is one of the leading countries using both illegal and legal means to collect massive amounts of personal data around the world.”
“Through cyberattacks alone, the Chinese Communist Party has gained access to the personal data of a large portion of the U.S. population, including data about our health, finances, travel and other sensitive information,” Evinana added.
Both current and former U.S. officials have said the CCP believes the data provides security, noting that “it ensures the stability of its regime in the face of internal and external threats to the CCP.”
The CCP reportedly discovered CIA intelligence operatives between 2010 and 2012 through a vulnerability in an online system used by the U.S. spy agency to communicate secretly with its agents.
A former counterintelligence executive said that “the highest levels of the Chinese Communist government” were outraged when they learned of the situation, leading to the imprisonment of the CIA’s human resources network in China and the killing of dozens of named informants.
Former intelligence officials told Foreign Policy that the Chinese Communist Party has stepped up its hacking efforts by targeting biometric and passenger data at transit hubs, including Bangkok International Airport.
These initiatives between 2010 and 2012 allowed Beijing to build the infrastructure needed to steal large data sets and easily sift through information, which paved the way for the Communist Party to successfully hack into the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, a former senior National Security Agency official said. Personnel data related to health, residency, employment, fingerprints and financial status was stolen from 21.5 million current and former U.S. officials, their spouses and job applicants.
The U.S. initially became aware of this Communist hacking problem around 2012. Another former senior CIA official said the hack “confirmed a new threat that we already knew about.
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