First reported July 3rd Cable Washington Postrevealed that the perpetrator had created a signal account under the name “marco.rubio@state.gov” and began contacting staff in mid-June. At least two targets received voicemails generated by AI, while the other targets were invited to continue the conversation on the signal. The exact content of the message remains unknown.
According to U.S. authorities, the impersonator's goals could be to extract sensitive information or gain unauthorized access to their accounts. The State Department then launched an internal investigation and issued warnings to all embassies and consulates around the world.
“There is no direct cyber threat to the department from this campaign, but if targeted individuals compromise, information shared with third parties could be made public,” Cable said.
A State Department spokesman confirmed that the agency is actively monitoring the situation and taking steps to enhance cybersecurity defenses. The department refused to share further details, citing security concerns.
Authorities say the incident is part of a broader disinformation campaign. The second operation, believed to be related to Russian actors, began in April and used fake State Department identities to target Gmail accounts of journalists, activists and former government officials. The FBI also issued public warnings about the growth trends in “smissing” (SMS phishing) and “vising” (voice phishing) attacks using content generated by AI. The station says that malicious actors have begun to scamm their peers and gain trust by senior American officials. This is not the first time Rubio has been targeted. Earlier this year, Deepfake Video falsely insisted that it wanted to cut off access to Ukraine's Starlink. Experts say that as AI-generated content becomes more and more realistic, such incidents become more difficult to detect.
“It's an arms race,” said Siwei Lyu, a professor of computer science at the University of Buffalo. “AI deepfakes are improving rapidly, and the tools to detect them are struggling to keep up.”
Rubio's impersonation follows a similar violation involving Trump Chief Susie Wills, whose contacts received an AI-Cloned Calls and message in May. Authorities are investigating whether the people behind the violation also accessed Wills' personal phone data.
As the threat of Deepfake's deception escalates, experts and lawmakers are calling for new detection technologies to counter stricter regulations, criminal penalties, and misuse of generative AI.
