The Old Warning Signs Are Gone
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The Old Warning Signs Are Gone
Security training used to tell you to look for spelling mistakes. Awkward phrasing. Generic greetings. The “Dear Sir/Madam” opening that signalled a mass-produced scam. Those signals worked because creating convincing, personalised attacks at scale used to require skilled writers, which cost money and time.
Since ChatGPT launched in November 2022, the economics collapsed. Attackers can now generate 1,000 personalised phishing emails in under two hours for approximately $10. The grammar is perfect. The tone matches the sender. The context is specific to you. Research published in 2024 found that 60% of people fall victim to AI-generated phishing — the same rate as falling for messages crafted by expert human social engineers who previously spent 16 hours on each attempt.
The thing that previously protected you — the attacker’s cost and skill barrier — is gone.