Several British military officers and MoD officials are said to have fallen victim to a simple, yet effective ploy to learn their personal data via Facebook.

The officials apparently friended a fake account set up in the name of US Navy Admiral James Stavridis. In the process, all of their personal information revealed on Facebook was harvested with relative ease. The culprit? NATO officials are not saying but the Sunday Telegraph claims Chinese involvement.

Although it is unlikely that any important information was lost, the incident is nonetheless embarrassing for NATO brass. After all these blokes were supposed to battle thousands of Warsaw Pack tanks in the Fulda Gap, chase nuclear subs in the northern Atlantic and keep an eye out for a possible Soviet maskirovka, yet they fell for a rather basic Facebook ploy.

More here.