HISPI Project Cerebellum HISPI PROJECT CEREBELLUM

FBI Reports Ongoing Vishing and Smishing Campaign Allegedly Targeting Government Officials Using Purportedly AI-Generated Voices

May 15, 2025

On May 15, 2025, the FBI and IC3 issued a public alert regarding an ongoing vishing and smishing campaign that has been active since April 2025. The malicious actors are reportedly using AI-generated voice messages to impersonate senior U.S. officials, targeting government personnel and their contacts in an attempt to gain access to personal or official accounts. The FBI cautions that this scheme may involve credential theft and social engineering, leveraging AI voice cloning to enhance believability. This incident underscores the importance of responsible AI governance and the need for safe and secure AI practices. For those interested in shaping the future of AI and preventing such incidents, consider joining HISPI Project Cerebellum TAIM (Govern) to map, measure, manage, and mitigate harm caused by AI.

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Matched TAIM controls

Suggested mapping from embedding similarity (not a formal assessment). Browse all TAIM controls

Alleged deployer
unknown-scammers
Alleged developer
unknown-generative-ai-developers, unknown-deepfake-technology-developers, unknown-voice-cloning-technology-developers
Alleged harmed parties
united-states-state-government-officials, united-states-federal-government-officials, former-united-states-government-officials, family-and-friends-of-united-states-government-officials

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1077

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.