AI has proved itself a major security risk – even American government officials are not safe.
Washington Post Informed On Tuesday that an unknown person used AI to pose as State Secretary Marco Rubio and “at least five government officials, including three foreign ministers, an American governor and Congress members.” The person used the signal app to send the voice and text messages of these officers, which was designed to mimic the rubio designed with AI.
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The post had access to a state department cable on 3 July, indicating that the Emphersner began trying to reach the privileged accounts and information for some time in mid-June, when he created a signal account under the name “Marco.Rubio@state.gov”-which is not the secret address of the secretary.
The State Department did not specifically confirm the post which equipment the AI tool used.
The cable clarified, “The actor left the sound mail on the signal for at least two targeted persons and in an example, inviting the person to communicate on the signal sent a text message,” saying that Rubio was not the sole officially. It was also noted that other personnel of the state department were imposed using emails.
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Signal was the subject of a lot of investigation earlier this year when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used it to discuss the classified military strike plans with other officials and Inadvertently added Jeffrey GoldbergEditor -in -chief of Atlantic for chat. While the signal is an end-to-end encryption, many defense officers considered the chat a serious security violation and said the signal is not enough for such sensitive government information.
Protect yourself from AI cyberthrate
Whether you are using the signal or not, what happened to Rubio and other government officials is similar to a general safety concern: Business Email Agreement (BEC) – when fraudulent actors apply to known employees or company leaders using their email accounts.
Passkeys can be a solution to protect from fishing and bec efforts, as they limit methods that hackers can strike by reducing information leak opportunities. Unlike traditional passwords, “Passke’s zero knowledge is a form of authentication,” explained by David Berlind of ZDNET. “The trusted party has zero knowledge of your secret, and to sign in to a relying party, all you have to do is to prove that the relying party has to prove that you have a mystery in your possession.”
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However, the additional layer of AI voice cloning can be more confident than an email and can often be harder to protect it.
“AI Voice Cloning Scams are dangerously assured. It is all a five-second clip of your voice-usually downloaded from social media-and scammers can clones to cheat it,” said Michael Skumac, Chief Innovation Officer of an identity theft monitoring forum. He talked to ZDNET how to avoid falling prey to an AI voice scam and what you can do to protect your voice from cloning.
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Here are their top suggestions:
- For the beginning, limit what you share online. “Scammers use public data and social media audio, which is to make the voice clone,” Scheumack said. “The lower they have, the more difficult it is to copy you.”
- Verify a suspicious call immediately. “If you get a call from a loved one for money or personal information, especially if the call has a feeling of urgency and feels suspicious, hang it directly and call them directly,” Scheumack advised. “You can also install a ‘family password’ that only acts as a verification code for authentication that you and your loved ones know that you are actually talking to your family member.”
- Invest in an identity protection service. “They are the first row of defense to protect your identity by monitoring signs of fraud in their financial accounts, credit reports and individual data,” said by Scumac. These are some recommended options for ZDNET.
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