Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

Phishing scams surged across social media platforms during the first quarter of 2026, according to a new report from the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG). “Threat volume increased in Q1 2026 on every social media platform, predominantly in two formats: Scams (27.1 percent of all threats) and Impersonation (43.8 percent of all threats),” the report says. The APWG adds, “Impersonation became more prevalent than in the previous quarter.

As employees increasingly rely on AI tools and AI agents in daily workflows, organizations are facing a new workforce security challenge: how to reduce risk without slowing productivity. Security leaders are no longer just protecting systems and identities. They also need to manage how employees interact with AI-generated content, automation, and decision support tools.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warns that Americans lost just under $900 million to AI-powered scams in 2025, Malwarebytes reports. Total reported losses to scams last year reached nearly $21 billion, a 26% increase from 2024. The researchers note that the true losses are likely much higher, since many attacks go unreported. “The main drivers behind the rise in AI-powered scams are voice cloning, deepfake images and videos, and AI‑generated scripts,” Malwarebytes says.

Phishing has always been a game of impersonation. But for decades, the tell was in the details: a misspelled word here, an awkward sentence there, a logo that was just slightly off. Security awareness training built an entire doctrine around those cues. Spot the typo, avoid the trap. That playbook is now obsolete. KnowBe4's latest Phishing Trends Report found that 86% of phishing attacks observed in the last six months involved some level of AI assistance.

An AI-driven system at a beverage manufacturer recently churned out several hundred thousand excess cans after misreading unfamiliar packaging. The system didn’t recognize the company’s new holiday labels, flagged them as an error, and triggered additional production runs before the company caught the mistake. The system followed its instructions perfectly.

Enterprise AI agent adoption has created a massive blind spot: 83% of organizations have no visibility into what their AI agents are doing, while 86% lack visibility into their AI data flows. With 1 in 3 enterprise employees now using an AI assistant daily — mostly without security governance — this visibility gap has become a critical enterprise risk. The security industry's response splits into two distinct layers.

As we speak, bad actors are using AI agents to do their dirty work. Our own research tells us 85.8% of phishing attacks were AI-driven in the past 12 months. Agentic power is helping social engineering and malware get smarter, faster and harder to detect. But enough of what you probably already know. Let’s talk about how we can address these risks. Our CISO Advisor Dr. Martin Kraemer wrote recently about AI agents being used for good.

Phishing attacks are evolving faster than traditional training programs can keep up. Advances in AI — including generative tools — are making attacks more dynamic, personalized, and harder to detect. At the same time, agentic AI for phishing security training is reshaping how programs improve, enabling them to adapt to user behavior and shifting risk in real time.

When the weather starts to get warmer, it is a sign that summer time is around the corner. But just as the weather heats up and travel plans get booked, scammers capitalize on the season by performing nefarious schemes to separate victims from their money and other valuables. Recent McAfee research found that more than one in three Americans have experienced a travel-related cyberthreat, with 41% of those affected losing money, often costing victims over $500.

You can add verified AI skills to your LinkedIn profile. Certifications proving you know how to use the latest tools. This shows progress, but it is only half the problem. While we are getting very good at verifying what people know, we still have almost no way to verify how they behave. In hiring, we obsess over skills and experience, and ponder cultural fit. We run background checks. We validate credentials.