Deepfakes vs Phishing

19% of young adults have been a victim of a deepfake or virtual kidnapping scam.

8% of the general population have been a victim of a deepfake or virtual kidnapping scam.

67% are concerned about GenAI-based Voice Attacks and Deepfake Impersonation.

In the UK, more than half of CISOs identify deepfake impersonation attacks as a major threat to their organisation.

36% of restaurant leaders feel not at all or only somewhat prepared for a socially engineered deepfake video or voice attack.

30% of restaurants experienced AI-generated voice or video impersonating executives to authorize fraudulent payments in the past year.

85% of adults aged 18+ in the United States, UK, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland say it is hard to tell a scam apart from the real thing, up from 66% in 2025.

88% of adults aged 18+ in the United States, UK, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland say it is becoming harder to tell what online content is genuinely human or real.

Exposure to AI fraud or scams is 67% for Gen Z, 51% for Millennials, 46% for Gen X, and 30% for Boomers and older.

31.3% of IT and security professionals rate deepfake voice and video technology as "extremely impactful" among emerging threat trends.

62.5% of IT and security professionals say deepfake attacks are immediately disruptive.

86% of employees say deepfake content is so realistic that it is harder to know what to trust.

FAMOUS CHOLLIMA doubled its operations using AI-generated identities to infiltrate cryptocurrency exchanges, fintech platforms, and consumer banks.

STARDUST CHOLLIMA tripled its operational tempo and deployed AI-generated recruiter personas and synthetic video conferencing environments to target fintechs across North America, Europe, and Asia.

More than half of Americans under 35 are concerned about deepfake scams.

Vishing intrusions increased by 2x in 1H 2026.

17% of reported cybercrime cases in Africa in 2025 involved online scams, including phishing.

Monthly device code phishing attempts increased 15x in 1H 2026.

In the first half of 2026, 67% of phishing emails passed DMARC.

39% of phishing messages featured novel social engineering techniques.

VIP users were targeted in 25.8% of phishing attacks.

The three most vulnerable industries at baseline are Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals (42.7%), Insurance (38.1%), and Retail & Wholesale (36%).

Organizations reduce phishing susceptibility by 79% after one year of consistent security awareness training.

Before any training, roughly one in three employees is likely to engage with a phishing attempt.

Almost 86% of phishing attacks contain AI-generated elements.

The number of mobile devices where employees clicked a malicious link grew 110% in 2025 compared to 2024.

Phishing events detected on employee mobile devices have grown 380% since January 2025.

Phishing was the primary means of gaining initial access in over half of Cisco Talos Incident Response engagements this quarter, up from approximately one-third of engagements last quarter.

The ARToken panel exposed 80+ API endpoints for device code phishing, primary refresh token persistence, email access, BEC operations, and SharePoint exfiltration.

Microsoft was the most impersonated brand in Q2 2026, appearing in 23% of all brand phishing attempts.