In 2022, during an investigation into a phishing incident at an Asia-Pacific aviation firm, Group-IB specialists uncovered a quiet heavyweight: W3LL.
What began as a routine lure unraveled into a private supply chain that bore an uncomfortably similar resemblance to a software business. It includes polished kits, tidy documentation, Telegram coordination, and a closed marketplace called the W3LL Store.
The activity stretched back to 2017, and the operation was built for scale. Compromised mailboxes led to BEC, partners recycled tooling, and the price of a single success could run into millions of euros. That investigation made something clear. Phishing is not a scatter of one-off stings; it is an industry with products, distribution, and support.
Industrialized crime leaves patterns that resist camouflage. Phishing is organized and repeatable, leaving patterns that machines can read.
AI Phishing & Email Security helps to turn the signals into early warnings and fast takedowns. This guide breaks down the moves that work in the real world, what to deploy, where to focus, and how to measure progress in phishing and email security.
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Phishing in 2026: What Changed
Phishing is a tactic designed to make you click or reply, allowing an attacker to steal money or access sensitive information. In the past, the emails were clumsy and full of mistakes. Many people could spot them at a glance.
However, AI quickly changed that trajectory. See how here. Today, a single attacker can write hundreds of clean, natural emails in minutes. The tone fits your company, the language fits your region, and the timing matches your news cycle. A message about a new bank account arrives right after your vendor announcement. It feels familiar, so it feels safe.
Moreover, the format changed too. It is not only email.
- AI can clone a voice for a quick “support” call. (Voice phishing)
- A face can appear on video to ask for a payment check. (Deepfake)
- A QR code can lead to a fake login that reveals its true intent only when you scan it.
These advancements accelerate phishing attacks in three ways:
- High-volume output. LLMs turn one crafted email into hundreds of unique versions in the time it takes a person to write one.
- Adaptive evasion. Links and pages can change after delivery, remaining only at the moment of click, slipping past static checks.
- Timely context. AI pulls in fresh news and company updates so messages match what targets expect to see.
This is where Group-IB fits naturally for phishing email detection. Business Email Protection brings anti-evasion URL and file analysis with automated detonation, so polished lures meet behavior, not assumptions.
MXDR watches around the clock and connects what happened in the inbox to what moved on the wire. Digital Risk Protection tracks brand misuse and presses for takedowns when hostile domains appear.
Together, these parts slow the attack early and shorten the cleanup when something slips through.
How AI is Revolutionizing Phishing Attacks
Phishing used to rely on clumsy emails and copy-paste kits. In 2025, it looks and sounds like real business. Generative AI writes clean language, matches tone, and adapts to the moment. That shift turns phishing into a play of precision and scale at once.
Simple examples
- HR example: “Reminder. Your benefits election closes today.” The link leads to a look-alike portal that captures credentials.
- Finance example: “Updated supplier banking details attached.” The PDF is clean on delivery. The link inside the arms only appears when clicked.
- IT example: “Security notice from your SSO.” The page mimics your real login flow and prompts you for an MFA code.
- Voice example: A short call in a familiar voice asks the AP team to confirm a transfer. The voice is AI-cloned from public audio.
Attackers now send polymorphic campaigns by default. Each target receives a slightly different email, subject line, or call to action. That variety weakens simple blocklists because there is no single pattern to match. The volume still looks like one campaign, yet every message slips through in its own way.
Timing also shifted. Many links and pages activate late. An email may pass all checks at delivery, then flip to a phishing kit when the user clicks. A clean URL at 9:00 can redirect to a credential harvester at 9:05. Defenders need inspection at the moment of action, not only at the gateway.
The economics favor the attacker. What once required hours of writing and testing now takes a few prompts. Lower effort means more attempts and more inboxes hit. Even a modest success rate becomes costly at scale.
Can AI Detect Phishing Emails?
Yes. AI can detect AI-powered phishing emails by reading the message the way a careful analyst would, only at machine speed. It evaluates the language for intent, like
- Requests to rush a payment
- Changes to bank details
- Unusual approval asks and compares the tone and style with past correspondence
It inspects links at the moment of click and flags look-alike domains or newly registered sites. It runs risky attachments in a safe sandbox to see what the file actually does, such as dropping new files or contacting command-and-control servers.
It also watches mailbox signals that follow a successful phish, like new forwarding rules or unexpected OAuth app grants. Together, these clues form a score that separates regular business mail from high-risk messages.
Phishing and Email Security Requirements To Beat New Age Attacks
1. Detection at Delivery
Business Email Protection (BEP) stops malicious mail as it arrives by automatically detecting and blocking scams, phishing, malicious attachments, BEC, and ATO at the gateway.
Group-IB’s BEC protection analyzes attachments and links at delivery by inspecting 290+ file formats and checking all URLs, including obfuscated or redirected ones. Its anti-evasion techniques and customizable detonation help expose threats that attempt to evade generic checks.
If something turns malicious after arrival, BEP’s retroactive analysis can reclassify the object or URL and remove it from mailboxes, closing the gap between delivery and discovery.
2. Time-of-Click Protection
Email phishing detection platforms like Business Email Protection check links at delivery and are built for real-time URL analysis, including obfuscated and redirected links. When a URL or object later becomes malicious, BEP’s retroactive analysis can reclassify it and remove it from mailboxes.
BEP applies anti-evasion techniques and can recursively analyze URLs and objects that change state over time, while a customizable detonation environment mimics your organization to surface behavior that generic checks miss.
3. Brand Impersonation & Domain Takedown
These targets look-alike domains, fake login portals, malicious ads, and social-media impostors that siphon users toward credential theft or payment fraud.
Group-IB Digital Risk Protection (DRP) and Phishing & Scam Protection continuously monitor for these abuses, collect the necessary evidence, and execute takedowns through registrar and hosting partners.
Faster removal shortens the exposure window for customers and staff, keeping brand signals clean across search and social.
4. Detonation For Files and Links
Within Managed XDR, suspicious files and links from across your environment are run in virtual environments to reveal real behavior and disrupt malware delivery at speed.
The detonation workflow provides extensive analysis, security threat detection, IOC extraction, and attack attribution.
Detonation is a core Managed XDR capability alongside email, network, and endpoint protection. It helps convert raw artifacts into clear evidence that drives immediate response actions.
5. Mailbox Forensics & Rule Monitoring
Managed XDR, an alternative to AI-based phishing detection, centralizes, correlates, and analyzes data from deployed tools to identify threats in real time, giving analysts a single place to investigate email-borne incidents and their downstream activity.
Using the unified XDR console, teams can hunt for undetected threats across telemetry, metadata, logs, and NetFlow, and collect forensically relevant data to support security incident response and investigations.
When attacks are detected, Managed XDR enables immediate response actions from investigation to containment, helping close the loop quickly on email-originated threats.
AI has turned phishing into timely, convincing outreach. The practical answer is a stack that understands intent at delivery, observes what links and files do at the moment of a click, and turns those signals into a single, clear incident story.
How Group-IB helps in three ways:
- Business Email Protection. Analyzes links and attachments, applies anti-evasion malware detonation, and uses retroactive analysis to pull newly malicious items from mailboxes.
- Phishing & Scam Protection. Purpose-built solutions and expertise to enhance anti-phishing and anti-scam measures across channels, helping identify abuse and move quickly to counter it.
- Managed XDR. Centralizes and analyzes data across email, endpoints, network, and cloud. Uses automation and machine learning to identify threats in real time and enable immediate response actions.
See it in action. Request a demo of Business Email Protection and Managed XDR, or start a quick email security assessment to benchmark your current defenses.
FAQs
1. How can AI help in improving phishing email detection?
AI reads emails the way an analyst would. It:
- Understands intent: Spots payment pressure, unusual requests, or “executive” tone even when wording is clean.
- Checks links at click-time: Follows redirects and flags look-alike or newly registered domains.
- Tests attachments safely: Runs files in a sandbox to see real behavior (dropped files, beacons).
- Learns from feedback: Improves with analyst reviews and user reports, reducing false positives over time.
2. How to detect phishing attacks?
Use a layered approach so you catch threats at delivery and at the moment of action:
- At delivery: Scan content for intent, verify sender/domain, and inspect all links and attachments.
- At click: Re-check URLs in real time; render pages to catch kits that “arm” late.
- In the mailbox: Watch for new forwarding rules, auto-delete filters, or odd OAuth app grants.
- Beyond the inbox: Monitor for brand impersonation and take down fake domains/portals.
- People & process: Short, recurring training plus a clear “report phish” path to the SOC.
3. What is real-time AI phishing detection software?
It’s security software that uses machine learning and behavioral analysis to evaluate emails as they arrive and when users click. It scores message intent, inspects links and attachments (including in a sandbox), and blocks or quarantines risky items instantly. The “real-time” part means links and files are re-evaluated at the moment of interaction, catching threats that change after delivery, and alerts flow to a central console for rapid investigation and response.
