UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham Tricked Into Texting a Fake Trump Aide
Someone impersonating Susie Wiles, Donald Trump's chief of staff, exchanged messages with the British Prime Minister. It's the latest in a string of attacks targeting senior politicians through simple social deception.
Key points
- Andy Burnham, the UK Prime Minister, exchanged a few text messages with a person falsely claiming to be Susie Wiles, Donald Trump's chief of staff, before growing suspicious.
- No messages of significant content were shared, and Burnham's team reported the contact to the appropriate authorities quickly once they suspected something was wrong.
- The FBI separately investigated Wiles' personal phone being hacked in May 2024, after a real attacker used her contacts list to message US senators, governors and senior business figures.
- Former UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron fell for a nearly identical trick in 2024, texting someone pretending to be ex-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
- Downing Street has declined to comment, citing national security.
Somebody texted the British Prime Minister pretending to be one of the most powerful people in Donald Trump's White House. No malware. No zero-days. Just a name.
Burnham exchanged a few messages with a person claiming to be Wiles, Trump's chief of staff and one of his closest political allies, before becoming suspicious the contact wasn't genuine. The incident was first reported by Politico. A government spokesperson said: "We do not comment on national security matters."
How did this happen?
The attacker didn't need to break into any system. They sent messages through what appears to be a standard channel, betting the name alone would get a reply.
Sources close to Downing Street said the messages were "of no significance" and were quickly passed to the relevant authorities once suspicion set in. No voice call took place.
The failure mode is exactly what you'd expect: a busy senior official receives a message from a recognisable name and replies before the verification question even forms. There's rarely a formal process at that level for confirming who is on the other end of a text thread.
Is Susie Wiles connected to other attacks?
Yes, and that context matters. The BBC has previously reported that the FBI investigated Wiles' personal phone being hacked in May 2024. A real attacker gained access to her contacts list and used it to message US senators, governors and prominent business executives. Wiles confirmed it was her personal phone, not her official government device, that had been targeted.
She was also among those targeted in 2024 by a cyber espionage unit associated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, a powerful branch of Iran's armed forces. Her name has become genuinely useful to people running impersonation operations.
| Incident | Target | Impersonated | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Text message impersonation | Andy Burnham, UK PM | Susie Wiles | 2025 |
| Phone hacking, contacts used | Wiles' network | N/A | 2024 |
| Iranian espionage campaign | Susie Wiles | N/A | 2024 |
| Fake call and texts | David Cameron | Petro Poroshenko | 2024 |
This isn't the first time a senior UK politician has been caught out this way. In 2024, then-Foreign Secretary David Cameron exchanged messages with someone pretending to be former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, a leader Cameron had met multiple times during his own time as Prime Minister. The Foreign Office went public specifically because it feared the recorded exchange could be manipulated.
These attacks cost almost nothing to run and require no technical skill. That's what makes them durable. The fake recruiter emails hitting Ukrainian IT staff we covered on 11 August follow the same logic: impersonate someone plausible, rely on a moment of distraction, collect whatever the target sends back.
Should you worry?
If you work in or near government, a message from a famous name you weren't expecting is worth one phone call to verify before you reply. The attacker is counting on the fact that you won't make it.
