Fighting GenAI with GenAI: The New Email Security Landscape

The use of phishing emails as a means of stealing information or implanting damaging malware dates back to the mid-1990s. Although almost as old as the Internet, it remains the instrument of choice for threat actors wanting to pose as trusted organizations or individuals for the purposes of corporate infiltration. In fact its use is on the rise: according to the most recent figures from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), some 26 percent of all cybercrime complaints filed with them are now phishing-related. The bad news doesn’t stop there. Phishing is mutating in alarming new ways, raising all sorts of difficult questions for defenders and placing email security at a tricky inflection point. AI has for years been a useful tool in the hands of the cybercriminal. But the advent of Generative AI (GenAI) is proving a cyber game changer, transforming phishing from a widespread but easily identifiable nuisance into a lethal precision instrument. …