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   Be on the lookout for deepfake and AI government officials, FBI warns   
      
   Date:   
   Fri, 16 May 2025 15:00:00 +0000   
      
   Description:   
   The FBI is warning about ongoing smishing and vishing attacks impersonating   
   senior US officials.   
      
   FULL STORY   
   ======================================================================   
    - The FBI published a new announcement, warning about ongoing attacks   
    - In the attacks, the crooks are impersonating senior US officials on both   
   federal and state level   
    - In many cases, the attackers are sending cloned voice messages   
      
   Cybercriminals are impersonating senior US officials in highly sophisticated   
   smishing and vishing attacks that leverage state-of-the-art technology such    
   as deepfake and generative artificial intelligence (GenAI).    
      
   This is according to the FBI, which warned US citizens about an ongoing   
   phishing campaign, in a new public service announcement published May 15.    
      
   The announcement states that threat actors are creating credible audio and   
   text messages, in many cases impersonating current and former senior US   
   federal and state government officials, or their contacts, the FBI said. If   
   you receive a message claiming to be from a senior US official, do not assume   
   it is authentic, the warning reads.    
      
   Smishing is short for SMS phishing, while vishing is short for voice    
   phishing. Both are a variant of the traditional phishing attack in which   
   threat actors throw a bait and phish for sensitive data. Victims are often   
   tricked into sharing passwords , credit card information, or other valuable   
   information, when tricksters promise them huge discounts on popular goods, or   
   threaten them with closing down their social accounts.    
      
   In almost all cases, phishing messages leverage peoples emotions and force    
   the victims to act quickly and without second thought.    
      
   The FBI did not discuss the contents of the messages being sent out, but it   
   did say that the attackers are trying to move people to a secondary messaging   
   platform, where distributing malware would be easier. It also gave a few   
   recommendations on how to be safe, including verifying peoples identities and   
   listening to the voice messages carefully for inconsistencies in tone and    
   word choice.    
      
   Phishing has been around since the dawn of the internet, basically, but with   
   the proliferation of generative artificial intelligence and deepfakes, the   
   problem has gotten even worse. One of the most abused individuals is Elon   
   Musk, whose face is constantly being plastered on ads for fake crypto   
   exchanges and giveaways.    
      
    Via The Register   
      
   ======================================================================   
   Link to news story:   
   https://www.techradar.com/pro/security/be-on-the-lookout-for-deepfake-and-ai-g   
   overnment-officials-fbi-warns   
      
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