AI Phishing Attacks are the New Frontier

Phishing is being transformed by AI-driven innovation that defensive training models can never catch up with, creating a dangerous security gap. How you respond to this generational threat will shape your organization’s cybersecurity.

AI-Powered Phishing Attacks are a Generational Security Threat

  • AI has created a “golden age” of phishing.
  • AI enables phishing innovation with greater speed, volume, and specificity. 
  • Combined with the vast resources of nation-state actors and large-scale criminal networks, AI phishing is a generational threat.


“Cybercriminals are leveraging publicly available and custom-made AI tools to orchestrate highly targeted phishing campaigns, exploiting the trust of individuals and organizations alike. These AI-driven phishing attacks are characterized by their ability to craft convincing messages tailored to specific recipients and containing proper grammar and spelling, increasing the likelihood of successful deception and data theft.”

AI Evolves Phishing from Social Engineering to Machine Learning

AI allows bad actors to revolutionize their creation and delivery along five vectors that make it difficult for defensive training models to keep up on their own:

  • Improved data analysis: Attackers use algorithms to process vast amounts of personal and corporate data available in social media profiles, public records, and online activity. By contrast, no defensive AI security tool will do the same for your organization. Nor would you want it to in most cases.
  • Deep personalization: Offensive AI can generate phishing emails that reference specific details gained from the data analysis phase.
  • Deepfake content generation: Attackers can utilize AI to impersonate audio and video from a trusted source.
  • Content mimicking: AI can mimic the writing style of a target’s connections, increasing the sense of trust in the message.
  • Scale and speed: Attackers gain unbelievable efficiency and scale in delivery.

AI-based SEGs are Good. Just Not Good Enough.

Model-based SEGs offer some improvement over static rules-based SEGs. But they won’t ever fully close the gap with AI phishing innovation. Here’s why:

  • AI training models are inherently backward-looking and only receive periodic retraining, while attack innovation races forward in real-time.
  • No model can learn what hasn’t been encountered. When a defensive model encounters novel threats, it will not be able to stop them. 
  • Regulatory constraints on AI in many parts of the world limit what data models can even learn on. Yet attackers have no such constraints.
  • All SEGs are focused on filtering decisions, and don’t deliver any depth of intelligence for risk management, leaving a major gap for effective security operations in the face of innovative AI-powered threats.

See Cofense in action.

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You'll learn how to:

  • Transform your employees into cyber-resilient assets and active phishing reporters.
  • Automate classification and remediation of AI-powered attacks that bypass your traditional or AI-based SEG.
  • Leverage globally-sourced threat intelligence to identify and mitigate post-compromise risk.