Prime Minister Andy Burnham may have inadvertently communicated with Russian or Iranian interests after exchanging messages with a person impersonating a senior White House official, according to a leading security expert.
Burnham is understood to have corresponded with someone posing as Susie Wiles, Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, before concerns were raised about the identity of the contact.
Professor Anthony Glees, an intelligence and security expert at the University of Buckingham, said the incident raised questions about the Prime Minister’s security arrangements and whether warnings about the compromise of Wiles’s phone had reached Downing Street.
Glees argued that the most significant issue was not necessarily the initial deception but the duration of the correspondence.
If the messages continued over a period of time, he said, there was a possibility that discussions could have extended beyond routine political contact and touched on sensitive domestic or international matters.
The episode could therefore expose the government to a potentially serious intelligence risk, particularly if the person behind the impersonation was connected to a hostile state.
Glees said Russia or Iran could have an interest in exploiting such a channel, although there is no evidence presented that either government was responsible for the messages.
Glees told The Daily Express: “The most obvious culprit is likely to be the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps intelligence service, they are very good at this kind of thing.
“We know they have been on rampage in the USA and we know that the FBI have failed to contain the threat they pose.
“But it could be the Russians, it could be the Chinese. I think the implications could be truly serious.”
The incident highlights the increasingly difficult security environment facing western governments, where senior officials are routinely targeted through digital impersonation, compromised accounts and social-engineering attacks.
For Downing Street, the central question is likely to be whether appropriate warnings and safeguards were in place before the Prime Minister began communicating with the alleged White House official.
The compromise of Wiles’s phone had reportedly been identified in May, meaning the effectiveness of internal security procedures and the speed with which intelligence was communicated to the Prime Minister will face scrutiny.
The potential exposure is particularly sensitive given Burnham’s role in decisions involving national security, defence and Britain’s relations with the US and its allies.
Even if no classified information was exchanged, the incident could provide a hostile intelligence service with valuable insight into the Prime Minister’s communications, priorities and negotiating position.
The government now faces pressure to establish who was behind the impersonation, what information was exchanged and why warnings about the compromised contact did not prevent the correspondence.
A government spokesman said: “We do not comment on national security matters.”
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