Federal authorities have started investigating a scheme to impersonate Susie Wiles, President Donald Trump’s chief of staff.
From The Wall Street Journal:
In recent weeks, senators, governors, top U.S. business executives and other well-known figures have received text messages and phone calls from a person who claimed to be the chief of staff, the people familiar with the messages said.But the messages weren’t from Wiles—and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the White House are trying to figure out who is behind the effort and what the goal is, according to some of the people. FBI officials have told the White House they don’t believe a foreign nation is involved, some of the people said.“The White House takes the cybersecurity of all staff very seriously, and this matter continues to be investigated,” a White House spokeswoman said.“The FBI takes all threats against the president, his staff, and our cybersecurity with the utmost seriousness,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement. “Safeguarding our administration officials’ ability to securely communicate to accomplish the president’s mission is a top priority.”
WSJ reported that the responsible party used Wiles’s personal phone, not her government phone.
At first, the recipients found the messages authentic, especially since the voice sounded like Wiles.
Investigators believe “the impersonator used artificial intelligence to imitate Wiles’s voice.”
One message asked someone to list people Trump could potentially pardon.
However, the people became suspicious when the person made obvious mistakes:
It became clear to some of the lawmakers that the requests were suspicious when the impersonator began asking questions about Trump that Wiles should have known the answers to—and in one case, when the impersonator asked for a cash transfer, some of the people said. In many cases, the impersonator’s grammar was broken and the messages were more formal than the way Wiles typically communicates, people who have received the messages said. The calls and text messages also didn’t come from Wiles’s phone number.
Suspicions continued to escalate when the impersonator sent messages while Wiles was traveling to the Middle East with Trump.
Unfortunately, those who believe the person was Wiles interacted with them before Wiles notified everyone of the breach.
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