LONDON, UK – Prime Minister Andy Burnham exchanged messages with a person posing as Susie Wiles, chief of staff to US President Donald Trump, before the contact was identified as potentially fraudulent.
The exchange was first reported by Politico, which said Burnham communicated with the impersonator before becoming suspicious that the contact was not genuine. Okay News understands that only a few messages were exchanged and that there was no phone or video conversation between the two.
Sources said the messages contained no information of significance and were quickly reported to the relevant authorities after concerns were raised about their authenticity.
A UK government spokesperson declined to discuss the matter, saying: “We do not comment on national security matters.” The White House has also been contacted for comment.
The incident comes amid previous attempts to impersonate senior US officials. The FBI has previously investigated the hacking of Wiles’ personal phone, after an impersonator used contacts from her phone to send messages to senior US officials, including senators and governors.
Wiles was also among US figures targeted in 2024 by a cyber-espionage group linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to previous reports.
The UK government has faced similar impersonation attempts. In 2024, then-Foreign Secretary David Cameron was targeted by a hoax call from someone pretending to be former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
Cameron also exchanged text messages with the impersonator. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office later disclosed details of the incident, saying it did so because of concerns that the exchange could be manipulated.
Two other UK ministers were targeted in 2022 by a person posing as then-Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace attributed the calls, made through Microsoft Teams, to suspected Russian “dirty tricks”.
The latest incident has renewed concerns about the use of impersonation and compromised contact information to gain access to senior political figures, although authorities have not indicated that sensitive information was disclosed in Burnham’s exchange.
