China's military intelligence services are increasingly turning to online job platforms with thousands of adverts intended to recruit people with access to sensitive information, the Five Eyes intelligence partnership warned on Wednesday in its first joint bulletin of its kind.

The alert, titled Safeguarding Our Secrets, was issued by the domestic security and counterintelligence agencies of Australia (ASIO), Canada (CSIS), the United States (FBI), the United Kingdom (MI5) and New Zealand (NZSIS).

It warned that Chinese intelligence officers are posing as recruiters and consultants for front companies based outside China in order to target Five Eyes government and military personnel “and anyone with access to classified or privileged information.”

The targets considered at risk include people holding security clearances, military personnel stationed in the Indo-Pacific and individuals with only indirect or peripheral access to government information — among them academics, journalists and think tank employees.

The warning follows an MI5 alert circulated in Parliament last November that Chinese spies were trying to target lawmakers through LinkedIn. The agencies describe the use of job platforms “to attract applicants who have direct or indirect access to privileged information” as a newer method now deployed at scale by foreign intelligence services and third parties acting on their behalf.

These intelligence officers often pose as employees of private consultancies, think tanks or human resources firms, advertising roles for foreign-policy and defense analysts.

The National Protective Security Authority, part of MI5, cautioned in accompanying guidance that the information sought “may not necessarily be ‘classified’ or an obvious target for espionage,” adding that a person’s “insights and network of contacts can form valuable ‘pieces of the jigsaw’ when brought together with other information.”

According to the bulletin, recruiters are changing from a dynamic in which they directly contacted targets via LinkedIn towards one in which potential targets would contact them in response to job advertisements.

The spies then rank applicants’ resumés “based on likelihood of access to sensitive information,” according to the security agencies. During virtual interviews, candidates may be filtered by being asked about their government contacts — or, for serving military members, their roles and unit activities — before being asked to write a trial report on a topic of strategic interest to China.

Successful candidates are then told the client wants more privileged material, and the conversation typically moves to an encrypted messaging app. Payment can range “from a few hundred to several thousand dollars per report,” often through unconventional methods, with more offered for increasingly sensitive information.

“While applicants often have no direct access to classified information, even unclassified information on government policy, or on military strategy, capabilities and installations, can be collected and combined with more sensitive reporting to form a comprehensive operational picture,” the bulletin states. Certain data, it warns, can put frontline personnel at risk, weaken economic prosperity and enable interference in democratic processes.

Responding to the allegations in an emailed statement, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said: “The allegation of so-called ‘Chinese espionage threat’ is entirely fabricated and constitutes malicious slander. We strongly condemn this.

“It must be pointed out that the ‘Five Eyes’ are the world’s largest intelligence network. Its members have engaged in unscrupulous espionage and intelligence-gathering activities around the globe. Their activities are the real threat to peace-loving countries.

“We urge the UK side to immediately stop this clumsy self-staged show of thief crying catch thief. Otherwise, it will only bring shame upon itself.”