The Seduction Strategy: How Spies Are Targeting Silicon Valley Secrets Through 'Sex Warfare'

In the heart of Silicon Valley, where billion-dollar ideas are pitched over coffee and defence contracts are won with innovation, a silent war is escalating, and it doesn’t always involve code, satellites, or cyber intrusions. Sometimes, it involves charm. Sometimes, a wedding ring. And often, no one even realises what’s happening until it’s too late.

According to current and former US counterintelligence officials, Chinese and Russian operatives are increasingly using “sex warfare" tactics — seduction, romance, and long-term manipulation — to infiltrate the American tech sector. It’s a method long associated with Cold War spy thrillers, but it has resurfaced with new force in Silicon Valley, where openness, ambition, and secrecy collide.

As one former US counterintelligence officer put