Marco Rubio's AI imposter has been contacting senior government officials

An imposter has been using AI to impersonate Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to a report by The Washington Post. The fraudster has been contacting various government officials, including three foreign ministers, a US governor and a member of Congress.

These officials received voice messages and texts that mimicked Rubio's voice and writing style. An official department memo says the imposter "left voicemails on Signal for at least two targeted individuals” and invited the others to join the platform.

We still don't know who is behind this mimicry, but the memo from the Department of State says that the goal was to gain "access to information or accounts" of these government officials. It also suggests that diplomats throughout the world should "warn external partners that cyber threat actors are impersonating State officials and accounts."

The unknown actor posing as Rubio reportedly created a Signal account in June with the display name "marco.rubio@state.gov." We don't know if the AI facsimile of Rubio managed to get any sensitive information.

The Department of State is also tracking a second campaign in which a bad actor impersonated a government official. This one started in April, according to CNN, and involves a “Russia-linked cyber actor” who “conducted a spear phishing campaign targeting personal Gmail accounts" by posing "as a fictitious Department official." The person behind this effort reportedly attempted to convince officials to link a third-party application to their Gmail accounts that "would almost certainly grant the actor persistent access."

This follows an FBI alert from May that warned of "malicious actors" impersonating "senior US officials to target individuals, many of whom are current or former senior US federal or state government officials and their contacts." The message went on to tell anyone receiving "a message claiming to be from a senior US official" that it might not be authentic.

Of course, AI mimicry has been spreading like wildfire in recent months and years. Robocalls pretending to be Joe Biden were all over the place during last year's presidential election and there was a law enforcement investigation into efforts to impersonate President Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles.

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