With the launch of ChatGPT, concerns have been growing around the use of AI in phishing. The concerns are founded: AI can write phishing emails. It’s not the only tool in a hacker’s toolkit either - cybercriminals can use many different technologies to build a phishing campaign and send phishing emails. Many, like chatbots, are widely available for consumer and business use.

Our increasing dependence on the internet and, specifically, email for business and personal communication has produced the perfect environment for cybercriminals to launch phishing attacks. As organization’s technical controls have advanced, cybercriminals have evolved their attacks, making them more difficult for traditional email security solutions that use signature-based detection (such as Microsoft and secure email gateways (SEGs) to detect.

Social engineering cyberattacks play on the mind, manipulating emotions and engaging in deception to get victims to give up passwords, financial data, and other valuable information. According to Verizon's 2022 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR), eight in 10 data breaches (82%) involve a human element. Alongside breaches caused by human error and malicious actions, this statistic also includes social engineering attacks.