China-linked hackers impersonated former U.S. officials and a senior Anthropic employee in phishing campaigns aimed at artificial-intelligence policy experts, seeking access to their Microsoft cloud accounts. The activity, attributed by Proofpoint to a China-aligned group tracked as TA419, targeted researchers at think tanks, universities and law firms, Defense One reported from the company’s findings.
The campaign used professional invitations as its opening move. Messages presented recipients with opportunities to advise on AI policy, export controls or supply chains. After a target replied, the attackers sent a link to a fraudulent OneDrive page designed to capture Microsoft login credentials, according to Proofpoint’s account.
Beginning July 8, the hackers posed first as Lynne Parker, a former principal deputy director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and then as Heidi Crebo-Rediker, the State Department’s first chief economist. The messages invited AI specialists to join a fictitious “AI Policy Advisory Committee” or help with a purported Senate Foreign Relations Committee report on AI export controls and supply chains. Parker previously served as the White House office’s assistant director for AI and as founding director of the National AI Initiative Office, while Crebo-Rediker previously worked as the Senate committee’s chief of international finance and economics.
Parker learned of the impersonation on July 9, after two recipients contacted her through separate channels to ask whether she had sent the messages. She told them the emails were fraudulent and alerted other colleagues. The campaign’s use of recognizable professional identities gave the requests a credible context before any credential-stealing link appeared, the findings indicate.
Proofpoint also identified an earlier operation in February that impersonated an unnamed senior Anthropic employee in an email to an AI policy analyst at a U.S. think tank. The subject line, “Request for Feedback on Military Integration of Claude,” referred to debate over the military use of Anthropic’s AI models. The approach likewise used a routine-looking policy exchange to initiate contact with a specialist.
The group’s activity extends beyond individual impersonations. Proofpoint found that the attackers registered web addresses mimicking the Heritage Foundation, Japan’s defense minister Shinjiro Koizumi and the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association. The company said TA419 has consistently shown interest in defense, national security, energy, international relations and foreign-policy targets, mainly with connections to the United States and Japan. It characterized the targeting of AI policy experts as an extension of that focus.
The campaign’s success remains unclear. Proofpoint did not state how many people were targeted, whether any accounts were compromised or whether the attackers obtained information. Crebo-Rediker and Anthropic did not respond to requests for comment cited by Defense One, while China’s embassy in Washington was contacted. Chinese officials have routinely denied allegations of state-backed hacking and espionage.
Proofpoint expects the attackers to continue targeting think tanks and policy experts working on technologies and in regions of interest to the Chinese government, including through further impersonation of real subject-matter experts. The findings place AI policy specialists alongside the defense, security and foreign-policy communities that TA419 has previously pursued, with the immediate tactic centered on trusted professional outreach followed by attempted credential theft.