It was all over the news. Fed's Jerome Powell was social engineered by Russian pranksters posing as Zelensky.
According to video footage shown on Russian state television, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell unwittingly spoke with a duo of Russian pranksters who were pretending to be Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy during a call. Powell provided responses to various questions about topics like inflation and the Russian central bank, believing that he was speaking with Zelenskiy. The integrity of the 15-minute footage is uncertain because of the current technical advances in deepfake audio and video technology.
According to a statement from a spokesperson for the Federal Reserve on Thursday, Chair Powell had a friendly conversation in January with an individual who pretended to be the Ukrainian president. The conversation occurred in the context of the Federal Reserve's support for the Ukrainian people during a difficult time. No sensitive or confidential information was exchanged.
A Bloomberg article stated: "The matter has been referred to appropriate law enforcement, and out of respect for their efforts, we won’t be commenting further.” The fact they confirm the call makes you wonder how on earth could a prank call like this get through the security layers at the FED?
For years, Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexei Stolyarov, who support President Vladimir Putin, have successfully tricked foreign politicians into speaking with them. In 2018, the UK government stated that they believed the Kremlin was responsible for a hoax call made to the Foreign Secretary at the time, Boris Johnson.
In a previous incident, the two individuals pretended to be Ukrainian President Zelenskiy and spoke with European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde. They also impersonated former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and spoke with Germany's former chancellor, Angela Merkel. Merkel seemed unsure during the call but did not confront the impersonators.
OK, it is clear that we need some high-level security awareness training here. Don't let this happen to your C-level executives!
Here's how the Social Media Phishing Test works:
