July 8 (UPI) -- An unknown party has used artificial intelligence to impersonate Secretary of State Marco Rubio and contact several government and foreign officials, the State Department announced.
The State Department on Thursday alerted all diplomatic and consular posts that a Signal account using the display name [email protected] was created in mid-June, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
"The individual contacted at least five non-department individuals, including three foreign ministers, a U.S. governor and a U.S. member of Congress," the State Department said in the alert, CBS News reported on Tuesday.
"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."
Other State Department personnel also were impersonated in the fraudulent email, according to the State Department.
Impersonating a federal worker or officer with the intent to deceive or to gain something is a federal crime.
Such acts do not require extensive knowledge and often succeed due to government officials many times being careless about online security, Hany Farid, a University of California-Berkeley professor in digital forensics, told The Washington Post.
"This is precisely why you shouldn't use Signal or other insecure channels for official government use," Farid said.
As little as 15 seconds of audio is enough to enable AI to impersonate a particular individual and make it say whatever is desired to obtain the intended result, Farid added.
The FBI declined to comment on the Rubio impersonation but May warned U.S. officials that "malicious actors" are using AI to impersonate senior U.S. officials as part of an ongoing "malicious text and voice-messaging campaign," The Washington Post reported.
Signal is the same encrypted app that resulted in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and others accidentally included a journalist in a group discussion of plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen in March.
A second Signal chat included two members of Hegseth's family.
