Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

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.

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.

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 Typos have been replaced by perfect prose.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.

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.