A new high-profile security incident has emerged, revealing that UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham exchanged multiple messages with an imposter pretending to be Susie Wiles, the current White House Chief of Staff to former President and 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump. The incident was first brought to public attention by political news outlet Politico, with Downing Street declining to issue any formal statement on the breach, citing national security protocols. According to anonymous official sources speaking to Politico, Burnham communicated with the fake account before growing suspicious of the contact’s legitimacy. Only a small number of messages were shared, and none contained sensitive or policy-relevant information, the sources added. Once the impersonation was detected, the exchange was immediately reported to relevant UK security agencies, and no verbal conversation ever took place between Burnham and the imposter. This incident is not an isolated case, and it ties into a broader pattern of high-level impersonation and cyberattacks targeting senior political figures on both sides of the Atlantic. Last year, the BBC confirmed that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation launched an investigation into a hack targeting Wiles’ personal phone in May 2023. During that incident, hackers gained access to Wiles’ contact list after compromising her device and used the stolen information to send messages to dozens of senior US officials from her account. Wiles, one of Donald Trump’s closest and most trusted long-term allies, confirmed at the time that the hack targeted her personal mobile device, not any official government communications line. Even so, the recipients of the fraudulent messages included sitting US senators, state governors, and leading American business executives. Wiles was also separately identified as a target of a 2024 cyber espionage operation linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, a major branch of Iran’s military that has been tied to multiple transnational cyberattacks targeting Western political figures. This most recent incident targeting Burnham marks at least the second high-profile hoax against a senior UK government leader in recent years. In 2024, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) confirmed that then-Foreign Secretary David Cameron fell victim to a hoax phone call from an imposter claiming to be Petro Poroshenko, the former President of Ukraine. Cameron, who previously served as UK Prime Minister and built a long working relationship with Poroshenko during his premiership, also exchanged text messages with the impersonator before the hoax was uncovered. The FCDO chose to release details of that incident publicly out of concern that unreported details could be manipulated by bad actors for political or disinformation purposes. As of this report, Downing Street has reaffirmed its position that it will not comment on matters related to national security, and no additional details about the investigation into the latest impersonation attempt have been released.
Burnham exchanged messages with person posing as Trump’s chief of staff
