Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

Researchers at Lexfo are tracking three sophisticated phishing kits that were built using open-source components, primarily based on the publicly available adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) attack framework “Evilginx.” The phishing kits are designed to proxy “live Microsoft 365 authentication sessions to capture session cookies and OAuth tokens in real time, bypassing MFA entirely.” The kits also use AI to generate personalized phishing lures with a variety of different delivery metho

I've spent my career figuring out what makes content stick, from early work for brands like Apple and onward across two decades across film, animation and generative AI. Different tools every few years, same question underneath. What makes someone lean in instead of tuning out? Turns out that question sits at the center of a problem the security industry has wrestled with for 15 years. How do you build a culture where people actually change how they behave? Not comply. Not click "complete." Change.

Apple is warning users to be wary of unsolicited FaceTime calls amidst a wave of scams impersonating Apple Support, Malwarebytes reports. The scammers inform the user that there’s been fraudulent activity or a technical problem associated with their account, and trick the victim into handing over payment card details, banking credentials or Apple ID logins.

Most phishing attacks pick a target and commit to a tactic. This one picks the tactic based on the target, which happens dynamically, per device, in milliseconds, without the victim ever knowing a decision was made.

In business, calling something a dinosaur is meant to suggest it is slow, outdated and overdue for extinction. Which is unfair to dinosaurs, who enjoyed one of the most successful runs in the history of life. Here is what people think they mean when they use the word. Lumbering. Doomed. Obsolete. A fat target waiting for the meteor. They imagine a tar pit. They imagine extinction. They picture something huge and slow, magnificently unsuited to the world it finds itself in.

Future-proofing organizations in the face of AI requires a unified defense strategy that secures both the human workforce and autonomous AI agents. One of the key requirements is shifting security cultures from reactive compliance to proactive, measurable behavioral change. As artificial intelligence evolves from a supporting tool into an autonomous digital workforce, organizations must adapt their defense frameworks to mitigate both human and agentic risks.

Fifty-three percent of organizations have had an executive or employee impersonated in targeted social engineering attacks over the past year, according to a new report from Outtake. Just over half of this impersonation activity took place on social media platforms using fake profiles, followed by video platforms.

When it comes to outbound email security, every organization operates under different operational constraints and security requirements. Some security teams prioritize in-app nudges and coaching to catch risky behavior the moment an email is drafted. Others want to avoid friction, particularly for executives, sales teams or mobile-first employees who rarely interact with desktop add-ins.

The recent developments surrounding vulnerabilities in major AI repositories like Hugging Face serve as a critical wake-up call for the cybersecurity community. As we accelerate toward an agentic future, the platforms we rely on for innovation are increasingly becoming the primary vectors for systemic risk.

Researchers at ReliaQuest are tracking two new phishing toolkits that are designed to bypass multifactor authentication (MFA). The first tool, called “Jalisco,” is a device code phishing platform that pairs with AI-powered phishing-as-a-service platforms like EvilTokens to provide fresh OAuth codes in real time.

Ransomware and phishing have always been linked, but the old model was blunt: a phishing email carried the payload, the recipient opened it, encryption followed within hours. What the threat looks like in 2026 is fundamentally different. The email that starts the chain carries nothing dangerous. Instead, the ransomware arrives weeks later, launched by a completely different attacker. So, what can organizations do to protect themselves from these new threats?

Security operations teams face a constant balancing act: stopping sophisticated email threats, maintaining visibility across their attack surface and keeping administrative workflows running smoothly. When security tools operate in silos or rely on rigid, manual processes, friction builds up quickly. This friction consumes valuable time that analysts could spend on higher-priority initiatives. At KnowBe4, we believe enterprise security should work for you, without the enterprise-grade costs.

Cybercrime used to have a ‘"tell." It was the digital equivalent of a villain stroking their cat - clunky grammar, misspelt links and suspicious attachments that screamed ‘phishing’. But the arrival of AI has changed everything. Typos have been replaced by perfect prose. Generic lures have evolved into highly personalized attacks that mimic your internal language and align with your project timelines.

Threat actors are using a new technique called “phantom squatting” to trick AI tools into directing users to phishing sites, according to researchers at Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42. Since AI models frequently hallucinate phony information, they sometimes point users to websites that don’t exist. Threat actors are now registering these AI-hallucinated domains and using them to host phishing sites.

Researchers at Cisco Talos are tracking a sophisticated phishing-as-a-service operator panel called “ARToken” that’s built on the EvilTokens phishing platform. ARToken focuses on targeted social engineering attacks, allowing operators to customize phishing attempts for each victim.

When we formed the global steering committee for our KnowBe4 Student Edition, our primary goal was to simply listen. That listening paid off during a pivotal conversation with a private research university in Florida. Their Chief Information Security Officer operates under a holistic mandate: to make the entire university ecosystem safer and more secure.

So, you have some AI tools or are thinking about deploying them and want to know a bit about securing them. You are not alone, but there are significant challenges due to the rapidly growing capabilities of AI, and the issues around new types of vulnerabilities we may not be used to thinking of. This is a very challenging area to attempt to secure, but I hope to point you in the right direction and set you up with some resources.

Picture this: Your company just fell victim to a massive data breach. The culprit wasn't a sophisticated malware strain, a zero-day exploit, or a compromised firewall. It was a perfectly legitimate-looking login from a VP’s account, originating from an unrecognized IP address, requesting an urgent wire transfer via a spotless, text-only email. In the modern threat landscape, attackers have realized something crucial: Why break in when you can just log in?

Threat actors continue to rely on social engineering as AI is incorporated into their attacks, according to ESET’s Threat Report for the first half of 2026. ESET’s Director of Threat Prevention Labs, Jiří Kropáč, stated, “Rather than relying on entirely new methods and tools, attackers are quickly adapting established techniques to new platforms, technologies, and user behaviors.

Scammers can use AI tools to find your location in photos you post to social media, according to researchers at McAfee. This information can then be used in targeted social engineering attacks. The researchers found that free AI models can correctly identify a photo’s location with around 90% accuracy.

The ClickFix social engineering technique is now the top malware delivery method, according to a new report from ReliaQuest. These attacks trick users into copying a malicious command, then pasting it into a terminal and running it on their computers. “ClickFix remained the dominant delivery method this period and, for the first time, we observed it expand to macOS, delivering infostealers onto a platform many organizations still monitor less closely than Windows,” the researchers write.

Threat actors continue to use AI tools to automate their attack flows and increase efficiency, according to researchers at ReliaQuest.

An initial access broker associated with the Payouts King ransomware group is using Microsoft Teams phishing to deploy a malicious Microsoft Edge web browser extension, according to researchers at Zscaler. Once the hackers have a foothold within an organization, they sell the access to the ransomware gang to conduct follow-on attacks.

Security must evolve from a static training program into dynamic, AI-powered human and AI risk orchestration embedded across the organization. The traditional model of security awareness aimed to get a message into people’s heads and hope it stayed there long enough to stop insecure actions. Organizations trained, tested, reported a completion rate to the auditor, and moved on.

A phishing campaign is targeting small businesses across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and the United States with emails that impersonate Interpol’s cybercrime investigation unit, researchers at Bitdefender report.

Boxers will often say, the punches that hurt the most aren’t the ones which are thrown with the most force, but the ones they didn’t see coming. I think the same is true in cybersecurity. It’s not the most advanced technically efficient, 0-day utilizing attacks that have the biggest impact, but rather those quiet ones. With no malware or suspicious login at three in the morning from an IP address in a country your company has never done business with. No alert fires.

Threat actors are abusing Shop, a legitimate app developed by Shopify, to launch phishing attacks, according to researchers at Gen Digital. Shop is used for making purchases and tracking orders, but threat actors are exploiting the platform to generate in-app notifications for phony invoices.

For years, security teams have poured resources into locking down the inbox, and for good reason. Email has always been the front door for phishing and social engineering. Unfortunately, another door has been left wide open: Microsoft Teams. Threat actors are increasingly posing as IT helpdesk staff inside Microsoft Teams chats, exploiting the built-in trust employees place in their internal collaboration tools to steal credentials and take over accounts.

There’s an important metric that can tell you exactly how vulnerable your high-risk employees and departments are to the next generation of social engineering. It’s not phishing click rates or training completion percentages. It probably doesn’t show up on any security dashboard. It’s the precise number of days it takes your team to respond to a live, context-specific threat with adequate training – training time to market.

Every year, KnowBe4 analyzes millions of simulated phishing tests to measure one thing: how likely is your workforce to fall for a phishing attack? The results, published in the 2026 Phishing by Industry Benchmarking Report, paint a clear picture of where human risk concentrates — and what organizations can do about it. Here are the key findings security leaders need to know.

When we think about email security, our minds almost always jump to the inbound threats: the sophisticated phishing lures, the AI-generated business email compromise (BEC) attacks, and the malicious attachments knocking at the perimeter. But there is a silent, internal crisis happening on the way out of your organization. And chances are, you’re flying completely blind to it.

The INC ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operation has grown into one of the premier ransomware offerings, claiming hundreds of victims in 2026 alone, according to researchers at Acronis. The attackers target a broad range of industries, but have recently prioritized entities in the legal sector.

Lead Analysts: Jeewan Singh Jalal and Louis Tiley KnowBe4 ThreatLabs tracked phishing campaign activity from the first week of April through June 22, 2026 — covering the pre-tournament build-up, tournament kickoff and the first twelve days of live match play. Our latest intelligence adds crucial mid-tournament telemetry (June 15-22), a newly identified reply-back campaign track and additional infrastructure intelligence.

Cloud email has become the center of modern business. Regardless of your organization's industry or size, email connects employees, customers, vendors, executives, financial systems and critical business processes. Unfortunately, attackers know this too. For cybercriminals, compromising an email account is often like finding the master key to a building. Once inside, they may be able to steal information, impersonate employees, redirect payments, spread malware or gain access to other systems.

I saw a venn diagram on social media. One circle is Shadow IT, one circle is Shadow AI, a substantial overlap, and the implicit message is that they are effectively the same challenge. They aren’t and that the assumption can lead to many problems. Looking back, shadow IT was like watching a crash in slow-motion. Employees using technology IT hadn't sanctioned. Personal Dropbox accounts. Unofficial Slack workspaces.

A new report from SpyCloud has found that phishing attacks have exposed employee data at 86% of Fortune 100 companies over the past 12 months, with the technology, airline and automotive sectors being hit the hardest. The researchers also found that 78% of organizations experienced an increase in phishing volume over the past year. Additionally, 84% of respondents named AI-assisted phishing as their top concern, followed by business email compromise (BEC) attacks.