Chinese spies attempted to spear-phish US diplomats?
While some of the documents from the batch of US diplomatic cables dumped by WikiLeaks have proved to be more explosive than others, every now and then some nugget of information fished from the less controversial cables turns up and proves interesting enough to merit a mention.
Such an instance has recently been remarked on by The Washingtonian's Shane Harris, and concerns an e-mail spear-phishing attempt thought to have been orchestrated and executed by Chinese spies.
It happened back in 2009, when the US was conducting negotiations with China regarding a possible reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions. At the time, five State Department employees who were involved in the negotiations have received e-mails purportedly coming from National Journal’s columnist and editor Bruce Stokes.
