A bogus caller posing as a Ukrainian official almost defrauded a US senator

The head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee spoke via Zoom with a person using deepfake technology posing as a top Ukrainian official, The New York Times reports.

Sen. Ben Cardin (Md.) received an email last Thursday that appeared to be from former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba requesting a Zoom meeting. According to reports, the person on the other end of the call looked and spoke like Kuleba, but behaved strangely. The president asked Cardin “questions of a political nature in connection with the upcoming election,” according to an email Senate security officials sent to lawmakers that he received from the president. Times. The bogus Kuleba demanded Cardin’s opinion on foreign policy issues, including whether he supported the launch of long-range missiles into Russian territory.

According to The Guardian, the course of the conversation aroused Cardin’s suspicions Times report and forwarded it to the State Department. The services confirmed that Cardin was not talking to the real Kuleba, but to an impostor, although it is still unclear who is behind the phone.

In a statement for TimesCardin said that “in recent days, a malicious actor made a fraudulent attempt to start a conversation with me by impersonating a known person.” Cardin’s statement did not reveal who the “known person” was, but it was revealed in a Senate security email.

Senate security officials told lawmakers to be on the lookout for similar attempts and warned that “it is likely that additional attempts will be made in the coming weeks.”

“While we have seen an increase in social engineering threats over the past several months and years, this effort stands out for its technical sophistication and credibility,” the Senate security office said in an email. Times To read.

As artificial intelligence tools become easier and cheaper to apply, political deepfakes have increased in frequency and effectiveness. In May, the Federal Communications Commission proposed imposing multimillion-dollar fines on a political consultant responsible for a robocall campaign in which he impersonated President Joe Biden. In a phone call – to Modern Hampshire voters ahead of the state’s primary – the bogus Biden told voters not to show up at the polls.