AI scammer fakes Rubio messages to top officials

A member of the media interviews Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, with a smartphone following a discussion at the Uber Technologies Inc. office in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, March 24, 2014. Rubio addressed the need to adapt antiquated government regulations to increase economic opportunities for the 21st century and outdated regulations limit consumer choice.

This underscores the scale of the threat posed by 'bad actors harnessing quickly evolving voice-cloning technology'

(Image credit: Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

What happened

An imposter used artificial intelligence to mimic Secretary of State Marco Rubio in voice and text messages to high-ranking officials including three foreign ministers, a governor and a member of Congress, according to a State Department cable obtained by The Washington Post.

Who said what

The unknown "actor" left voicemails for officials on the Signal messaging app, favored by the Trump administration, after a fake account with the display name marco.rubio@state.gov was created in mid-June. "In one instance," the imposter "sent a text message inviting the individual to communicate on Signal," the July 3 cable said. In addition, "other State Department personnel were impersonated using email," said the Post.

AI was used to impersonate Rubio earlier this year, when a deepfake video appeared to show him saying he wanted to "cut off Ukraine's access to Elon Musk's Starlink internet service," said The Associated Press. The "impersonation campaign" underscores the scale of the threat posed by "bad actors harnessing quickly evolving voice-cloning technology," said Axios. This "isn't a very sophisticated thing," said Ana Cabrera on MSNBC. "It doesn't take a tech guru to pull this off."

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What next?

The State Department told the Post it would "carry out a thorough investigation" into the Rubio security breach "and continue to implement safeguards to prevent this from happening in the future."

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Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.