By An unknown actor has deployed artificial intelligence tools to impersonate U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, contacting senior officials through fabricated voice and text messages, according to a State Department cable dated July 3 and a senior U.S. official familiar with the matter.
The scheme involved the creation of a Signal account bearing the display name “Marco.Rubio@state.gov”—a false address not connected to the Secretary, according to The Washington Post. Beginning in mid-June, the impersonator contacted at least five high-ranking individuals: three foreign ministers, a U.S. governor, and a member of Congress. The messages were transmitted via Signal, a widely used encrypted messaging application within the Trump administration, and included voicemails as well as invitations to continue dialogue over the app.
“The actor left voicemails on Signal for at least two targeted individuals and in one instance, sent a text message inviting the individual to communicate on Signal,” said the cable. It also noted that other State Department personnel were impersonated using email.
When asked about the cable, the State Department responded that it would “carry out a thorough investigation and continue to implement safeguards to prevent this from happening in the future.” Officials declined to discuss the contents of the messages or the names of the diplomats and officials who were targeted.
In addition to the effort to impersonate Rubio, several recent impersonation attempts have targeted high-profile U.S. officials. In May, someone breached the phone of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and began placing calls and messages to senators, governors and business executives while pretending to be Wiles, the Wall Street Journal reported. The episode spurred a White House and FBI investigation, although President Donald Trump dismissed its significance, saying Wiles is “an amazing woman” who “can handle it.”
Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who specializes in digital forensics, said operations of this nature do not require sophisticated actors, but they are often successful because government officials can be careless about data security.
“This is precisely why you shouldn’t use Signal or other insecure channels for official government business,” he said.
The July 3 cable urged American diplomats to report “any impersonation attempts” to the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.
U.S. officials believe the purpose of the operation was to “manipulate powerful government officials with the goal of gaining access to information or accounts,” the cable stated. The State Department declined to reveal the identities of the targeted individuals or the content of the messages, but said it is “carrying out a thorough investigation and [will] continue to implement safeguards to prevent this from happening in the future.”
A State Department spokesperson said the agency “is aware of this incident and is currently investigating the matter.”
“The department takes seriously its responsibility to safeguard its information and continuously takes steps to improve the department’s cybersecurity posture to prevent future incidents,” the spokesperson said Tuesday. “For security reasons, and due to our ongoing investigation, we are not in a position to offer further details at this time.”
The impersonation follows a similar May incident in which someone posing as White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles contacted senators, governors, and business leaders with fake messages and calls, Wapo reported at the time. President Donald Trump, addressing the breach, said Wiles is “an amazing woman” who “can handle it.”
The FBI, which is now investigating the Rubio case, declined to comment. Impersonating a federal official to deceive or extract information is a federal offense.
In a bulletin issued in May, the FBI warned of an “ongoing malicious text and voice messaging campaign” involving AI-generated voice clones of senior U.S. officials. The alert cautioned recipients, “If you receive a message claiming to be from a senior U.S. official, do not assume it is authentic.”
Such schemes are not confined to U.S. officials. Similar AI-driven impersonation campaigns have been reported abroad, with Russian agents posing as Ukraine’s security services and Canadian fraudsters using synthetic voices to impersonate government officials and deploy malware.
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