American Universities Infected by Foreign Spies Detected by FBI

Hearkening back to Cold War anxieties, growing signs of spying on US universities are alarming national security officials. As schools become more global in their locations and student populations, their culture of openness and international collaboration makes them increasingly vulnerable to theft of research conducted for the government and industry. “We have intelligence and cases indicating that US universities are indeed a target of foreign intelligence services,” Frank Figliuzzi, FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, said in a February interview in the bureau’s Washington headquarters. While overshadowed by espionage against corporations, efforts by foreign countries to penetrate universities have increased in the past five years, Figliuzzi said. The FBI and academia, which have often been at loggerheads, are working together to combat the threat, he said. Attempts by countries in East Asia, including China, to obtain classified or proprietary information by “academic solicitation,” such as requests to review academic papers or study with professors, jumped eightfold in 2010 from a year earlier, according to a 2011 US Defense Dept. report. Such approaches from the Middle East doubled, it said.

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