AI-Driven Phishing Attacks Surge to Over 80% of Global Social Engineering Incidents

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AI-Driven Phishing Attacks Surge to Over 80% of Global Social Engineering Incidents

First seen 8 Nov 2026, 15:18 UTC •51.9

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ThreatCluster •November 8, 2026 at 15:19 UTC

•AI-driven phishing attacks now exceed 80% of global social engineering incidents.
•Mythos from Anthropic identified 271 vulnerabilities in Firefox and over 23,000 in open-source projects.
•The democratization of AI tools is enabling more sophisticated cybercriminal activities.

Phishing attacks utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) now account for over 80% of global social engineering activities, as reported in the ESET SMB Cyber Readiness Index 2026. The rise of sophisticated cybercriminal organizations offering malware-as-a-service (MaaS) has transformed the threat landscape, targeting various digital ecosystems, including cloud services and IoT devices. AI tools, such as Mythos from Anthropic, have demonstrated a high capability in identifying software vulnerabilities, with reports indicating 271 vulnerabilities found in Firefox and over 23,000 in more than 1,000 open-source projects. Experts emphasize that the democratization of AI is empowering a wider range of individuals with powerful cyber capabilities, complicating the resilience strategies of organizations. This shift necessitates a reevaluation of cybersecurity measures to address the evolving threat posed by AI-enhanced phishing tactics.

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Threat Graph

10 entities, 9 inferred relationships (STIX 2.1).

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Technique (5)

Malware
Phishing
Ransomware
Zero-day Exploit
T1566 - Phishing

Malware (1)

PromptSpy

Affected Platform (3)

Android
Firefox
OpenClaw

Threat Actor (1)

Promptlock

Relationships

Promptlock uses PromptSpy
Promptlock uses Malware
Promptlock uses Phishing
Promptlock uses Ransomware
Promptlock uses Zero-day Exploit
Promptlock uses T1566 - Phishing
Promptlock related to Android
Promptlock related to Firefox
Promptlock related to OpenClaw

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Common questions

What percentage of phishing attacks involve AI?

Over 80% of global phishing attacks now utilize artificial intelligence.

What vulnerabilities have been identified by AI tools?

AI tools like Mythos have identified 271 vulnerabilities in Firefox and over 23,000 in various open-source projects.

How should organizations respond to the rise of AI in phishing?

Organizations need to reassess their cybersecurity strategies to counteract the evolving threats posed by AI-enhanced phishing tactics.

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