Phishing attacks: are they getting smarter?

23rd October 2025

As social engineering evolves, we have to be ready to improve our defences.

By now, most people should be aware of phishing – and if you’re not, look at some of our other articles, we have plenty! It is when a user is sent an email, text, or other communication and asked to give out important account details, or to click a link that installs malware and obtains the data that way.

However, methods are now evolving to be more complex and harder to spot: what are they?

Multi-step interactions: attackers may now engage in longer conversations than before, to build trust. It may start with harmless messages that you wouldn’t consider a threat and grow into requests for key data and funds.

Advanced social engineering: using publicly available data – what you have on social media, your website, wherever – to construct an attack that feels legitimate. If styles are mimicked or colleagues are named it can make the social engineering attempt feel genuine.

Business email compromise (BEC): an attack that involves no malware (which makes it hard to detect), this involves hijacking or spoofing email accounts of key figures in a business to ask employees for money, using the authority to trick them.

AI generated content: AI can help attackers to research and create content designed to fool users, and it can be made so quickly that it can easily been seen as real.

With phishing methods evolving, you need to evolve too. Further your cyber security training, so you and other staff know exactly what to look for; get a security team who can monitor inboxes 24/7, keeping attempts from getting to people; and implement the latest technology, to prevent anything malicious, from compromising your systems.

Ultimately, if you are impacted by one of these attacks, speak up: there is no shame in it, particularly as they become more complex, and it might prove the key to stopping any similar attacks in future.

If you would like more details on phishing attacks and how they are becoming smarter, please contact Interfuture Security today.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/WjXbdRYvZs0