AI impersonator posing as US Secretary of State targets foreign ministers: Report

An individual using an AI-generated voice to impersonate US Secretary of State Marco Rubio contacted three foreign ministers and two US officials last month, Reuters said in a report. 

It added that the impersonator reached out via the Signal messaging app, leaving voicemails and inviting targets to continue communication on the encrypted platform.

The Washington Post was the first to report the incident. 

The report, citing a recent diplomatic cable shared with all US diplomatic and consular posts, urged staff to warn external partners about the rising threat of fake accounts and impersonation attempts driven by AI. The identities of the targeted ministers and officials were undisclosed.

This development follows another recent security mishap when former national security adviser Mike Waltz mistakenly included a journalist in a Signal group chat, where sensitive information about US military action in Yemen was shared.

The US State Department’s warning also comes amid increasing concern over AI-driven impersonation tactics. In May, the FBI alerted US government officials that malicious actors were using text messages and AI-based voice clips to impersonate senior US officials as part of phishing schemes targeting personal accounts.

While the cable did not attribute the latest impersonation to a specific actor, it referenced an earlier cyberattack in April, linked to a Russia-backed hacker group, which primarily targeted think tanks, Eastern European activists, and former State Department personnel using spoofed emails and forged State Department branding.

The report stated the perpetrator used a fake "@state.gov" email address along with copied logos and branding from the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Technology.