Synthetic Phishing: AI-Enabled Insider Impersonation
- NOVEMBER 24TH, 2025
- 2min read
Introduction
Threat actors increasingly use artificial intelligence (AI) to impersonate trusted individuals such as executives, employees, or suppliers within organisations. These “synthetic insider” attacks may include AI-generated emails, chat messages, voice clips, or videos that appear genuine. The goal is often to obtain money, credentials, or access permissions.
In mid-2025, an impostor used AI to mimic U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, contacting officials via Signal to try to access sensitive information.
How the attack works
- The attacker studies publicly available data (social media, corporate websites) to identify a target organisation’s employees or suppliers.
- Using AI, they generate convincing messages (email, chat, voice) that look like they come from a senior person in the company (for example, “CEO”, “Finance Director”).
- Because the message appears legitimate (“sounds like our boss”, “uses the correct project name”, “comes via Teams/WhatsApp”), the recipient may comply before questioning it.
- The attacker may embed fake approvals, social-engineered dialogues or AI-cloned voices to bypass checks and gain access or cause a financial loss.
How can you protect yourself?
- Pause and verify: For urgent or unusual requests, especially financial or access-related, confirm identity via a known number or in person.
- Check the channel: If a request arrives through an uncharacteristic platform, treat it as suspicious.
- Look for subtle indicators: Slightly odd language, uncharacteristic urgency, unfamiliar links or attachments, or requests to bypass standard procedures.
- Educate employees and users: Ensure everyone understands that impersonation attacks can now leverage AI (voice clones, video, and extremely realistic emails), and that anyone could appear legitimate.
- Report incidents: Contact your IT or security team immediately if you suspect an impersonation attempt.
Keywords
- Primary: synthetic phishing, AI phishing attacks, insider impersonation
- Secondary: AI-generated emails, AI voice cloning, social engineering, phishing prevention, executive impersonation, AI cybersecurity threats
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