UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has been left red faced and embarrassed by a hoaxer posing as the chief of staff to U.S. President Donald Trump who tricked him into exchanging messages in a major security breach.
Downing Street has declined to comment on the illicit cyber intrusion, as first reported by Politico.
The outlet revealed officials said Burnham, a former regional mayor gifted the national leadership by his left-wing Labour Party comrades, communicated with the hoaxer claiming to be White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, “before becoming suspicious that the contact was illegitimate” and claimed only a “few messages” were exchanged and there was nothing else to be concerned about.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wiles confirmed to associates her cellphone contacts had been hacked by an unknown miscreant.
Wiles, a key Trump ally, was previously among those targeted by a cyber espionage unit associated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards – a powerful branch of Iran’s armed forces – in 2024.
This is not the first time a global political figure has been duped by cyber imposters.
In 2024, the UK Foreign Office (FCDO) confirmed two government ministers were tricked by an imposter posing as the former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, as Breitbart News reported.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman, Max Blain, said the Kremlin was behind that breach, declaring “the Russian state was responsible for the hoax calls made to government ministers last week.”
British officials were concerned at the time Moscow might release doctored clips from the calls as part of a disinformation campaign and to embarrass Britain.
In 2022 left-wing horror author Stephen King fell for a Russian prankster posing as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky who hooked him into praising Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, as Breitbart News reported.
King’s misstep with the prankster comes after he raged on Twitter against conservatives following the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
An imposter posing as U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also reportedly sent AI-generated voice and text messages to high-level officials and foreign ministers, AP reported in 2025, in what was then the latest in a strong of American officials to be targeted by impersonators.