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According to PST, several countries are trying to recruit Norwegians as spies. In the national threat assessment for 2021, Russia stands out as the biggest threat.
The threat assessment establishes:
“Some services spend huge resources on this in Norway. They will continue this activity in 2021. The biggest threat in terms of recruitment will come from the Russian intelligence services.
“A significant number of intelligence officers work at the Russian embassy in Oslo. They spend a lot of time establishing and maintaining relationships with people in Norway. ‘
PST claims that their business is undesirable and harms Norway.
Diplomatic immunity
Intelligence officers have diplomatic immunity and therefore the Norwegian authorities cannot prosecute them.
The threat assessment establishes:
“An established source will be able to provide an intelligence service with unique information about what people, businesses, government agencies or political institutions are doing or planning to do.”
Furthermore, PST states:
“A source can also provide information on disagreements, internal conflicts and possible dissatisfaction in a company. The person in question can also be asked to look for other types of vulnerabilities that an intelligence service can exploit».
“Among other things, information about a company’s routines, security measures and ICT infrastructure will be sought, after information in planning new intelligence operations”.
PST notes that a source or agent can also be instructed to influence decisions in secret.
Intelligence operations in Norway are planned and the development of potential sources can take place over many years. Among other things, we see that intelligence agents look for young people who they assume will be able to gain influence and access to information in the long term..
Different arenas
PST confirms in the threat assessment that they regularly discover that intelligence officers in Norway are contacting people who do not have direct access to the information that the officers are looking for.
Those who are contacted can be part of a network of relevant people with such access, indicated in the threat assessment.
Intelligence officers use different scenarios to identify and eventually contact potential sources. At these meeting places, intelligence officers will contact the person they want to recruit.
Creates addiction
The threat assessment describes a common procedure for recruiting a source as follows:
“Among other things, they will pretend to be employees of an embassy, a company or an educational institution. Then, little by little they seek to establish a professional and friendly relationship.”.
“They will map the accesses that the potential source has and investigate which networks the person belongs to and what they can be part of”.
“The goal of the intelligence officer is to create a dependency relationship, where the source accepts rewards, feels pressured or compelled to make assignments for the intelligence officer. In 2021, more intelligence services will try to recruit people through social media ».
Social networks
A well-known procedure is that the intelligence service contacts and initiates a relationship through an online forum run by professionals, for example, through the social network LinkedIn.
The threat assessment establishes:
“The intelligence officer, or a person he controls, may, for example, pretend to be a foreign expert or an employee of a recruitment agency. Over time, the relationship will develop.”.
“The person in question may receive invitations to various seminars or be commissioned to prepare written reports, articles or articles for a fee.”.
“The cooperation, however, will be governed by the foreign intelligence service, either to influence the formation of Norwegian opinions and decisions, or to gain access to sensitive information.”.
Presses
PST warns students and other Norwegian citizens that this year they are staying in countries with an authoritarian government.
The security police fear that the host country’s intelligence services will attract or pressure them to carry out missions for them.
Foreign nationals in Norway may also experience pressure from the intelligence service of their home country in this country.
PST confirms that intelligence services can act more direct and threatening when trying to recruit citizens of their own countries than when trying to recruit Norwegians.
