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Chinese hackers have been impersonating prominent US artificial intelligence experts, including a former White House official, to try to break into the email accounts of AI policy specialists, according to a new report from cybersecurity firm Proofpoint.
Getting into it: Proofpoint said a China-aligned group it calls TA419 sent emails in July posing as Lynne Parker, a former top White House tech official under Presidents Trump and Biden, inviting targets to join an “AI Policy Advisory Committee” or “a new AI policy project.” Anyone who replied was then pointed to fake login pages or documents loaded with malware, built to grab their passwords. Months earlier, in February, the group impersonated a senior Anthropic employee in an email to a think tank analyst with the subject line “Request for Feedback on Military Integration of Claude,” a reference to Anthropic’s AI model.
Roughly 10 people at think tanks, universities, law firms, and defense contractors in the US and Japan were targeted. Proofpoint said they worked on AI rules, export restrictions and broader US AI strategy, suggesting “an intelligence interest in US policymaking rather than technology theft alone.” Reuters named one target as Alex Engler, who previously worked in the White House and now leads a University of Pennsylvania tech policy center. He said the email “felt slightly, nebulously off” before he realized it was fake. Proofpoint found no evidence that any of the attempts succeeded.
“We are confident that [the hacking group] is a Chinese government-aligned threat actor based on targeting consistently in line with Chinese government interests, observed infrastructure and technical artifacts, and corroboration from industry partners,” Proofpoint researcher Mark Kelly told CNN.
The Chinese Embassy didn’t respond to requests for comment, and Beijing has repeatedly denied accusations that it conducts cyberespionage.
This all comes a few weeks after top Trump administration officials accused Chinese AI companies of “industrial-scale” theft of US trade secrets.
