In the high-tech world of espionage, deep pockets prevail.  Not this time though, as Chinese spies have mined substantial amounts of data.. through Facebook.  Proving that the social data mining machine is a double-edged sword, the spies gathered email addresses, phone numbers, names, and details on family members on a number of high-ranking military officials.  The fake account of United States Navy admiral James Stavridis befriended a number of other officials for an undisclosed amount of time before the intrusion was identified.  Considering the number of ‘spoof’ accounts of a number of famous celebrities and the sensitivity of these high-ranking officials positions, it’s disconcerting such a simple and well-known technique was so successful.

Chinese Spies Use Fake Facebook Pages to Gain Intel | Defense Tech.