Now accepting applications — for classified intel

Source Domain: www.nextgov.com

Over the past year, waves of federal layoffs have left thousands of government employees and contractor clients suddenly out of work. For foreign intelligence services, that disruption has opened new opportunities. With more former U.S. officials seeking employment or freelance work — often in specialized national security fields — adversaries, namely China, have stepped in, posing as consulting firms, research groups and recruiters.

The efforts aren’t tied to traditional signals intelligence or hacking. They’ve instead relied on human contact: conversations that begin over email or job platforms and evolve into targeted efforts to extract sensitive information. It’s a form of classic human intelligence — or HUMINT, in spy terms — adapted to the everyday churn of online job hunting that’s become all too familiar to thousands of Washingtonians and others swept up in the wave of federal layoffs.

The tradecraft is subtle: fake websites, staged interviews and plausible payment offers. But the goal remains the same as any other in spycraft. And as recent federal indictments show, this model has worked. Former military analysts, civilian employees and even active-duty personnel have been caught passing information to contacts they believed were legitimate employers or clients.

In 2025, the Justice Department publicly announced charges or indictments in at least five separate cases involving current or former U.S. government personnel accused of transmitting classified or sensitive information to foreign intelligence services, primarily the Chinese government, according to a review conducted by Nextgov/FCW.

In nearly all of them, the initial contact came through virtual means. One case involved a State Department employee who shared classified documents with individuals he believed were working for overseas consulting firms. Another cited a former Army analyst recruited through a freelance job platform, who went on to sell troves of sensitive military…

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