About Signal: Unknown person impersonated US Secretary of State thanks to AI
Using fake audio and text messages, a fraudster has contacted several foreign ministers via Signal and posed as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
(Image: Maxim Elramsisy/Shutterstock.com)
An unknown person has allegedly used AI technology to generate fake audio and text messages from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and used them to contact other foreign ministers and high-ranking US politicians via the crypto messenger Signal. This was reported by the Washington Post, citing internal documents and a person in the know. According to the report, US law enforcement authorities do not know who is behind the deception. It is also unknown whether anyone responded to the contact attempts. According to the report, the unknown person used a Signal account that used the – incorrect – email address “Marco.Rubio@state.gov” as the displayed name.
Not the first incident with Signal
According to the newspaper, the unknown person sent audio messages in at least two cases and, in another case, sent a text message inviting people to another exchange via Signal. She also impersonated other people from the US government via email. The US State Department is investigating the incident and is working to prevent it from happening again. The newspaper has not learned what exactly was said or written in the messages and to whom they were sent. The internal document on the incident dates back to July 3. The FBI has not commented on the matter; anyone who falsely impersonates a government representative in the USA is committing a criminal offense.
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The incident now recalls an episode from the early days of the new US government. At the end of March, the renowned magazine Signal revealed that its editor-in-chief had inadvertently been added to a group chat on Signal in which high-ranking individuals from the US government exchanged secret information about US military strikes. It was subsequently revealed that Messenger was much more widely used in the US government, but once again in the form of the app itself. Instead, a modified application was in use that bypassed key security features of Signal and was itself extremely insecure.
The Washington Post's revelation now underscores why commercial software like Signal is completely unsuitable for professional use by government employees. The attack by the fake Marco Rubio did not require a sophisticated procedure, the Washington Post quotes an expert. All that was needed were the cell phone numbers of the people contacted, a little training material for the imitating AI and finally just a little carelessness for the people contacted. The FBI warned back in May: “If you receive a message purporting to be from a high-ranking representative of the US government, assume that it is not genuine.”
(mho)
