Phishing Has Evolved: How Cybercriminals Are Using AI and How You Can Fight Back

When it comes to protecting our data and systems from cybercrime, we’re all on the same team and often facing similar challenges. One of the topics that’s become especially relevant in the last six months is the rise of AI-powered phishing attacks.

In the past, identifying a phishing email was relatively straightforward. We were taught to look for obvious red flags: broken English, typos, generic greetings like "Dear Customer," or formatting errors.

Cybercriminals now use generative AI to instantly generate professional and grammatically perfect messages. More alarmingly, they use AI to scrape public data to craft messages that may reference your actual job title, recent public business news, or sound exactly like a trusted vendor. 

How CDK Protects Your Organization From AI-Powered Phishing Attacks

When it comes to this topic specifically, we monitor for occurrence of copycat domains or websites and use legal means to take them down. Additionally, we’ve implemented Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC), enabling your security systems to stop emails attempting to spoof @cdk.com addresses.

Best Practices for Preventing AI-Driven Phishing Scams

• Establish an "Out-of-Band" Verification Rule: If you receive an urgent or unexpected request — especially one involving money, password resets or sensitive data — never reply directly to the message. Call the person or company back using a trusted, publicly listed phone number.
• Meticulously Inspect the URL: Look closely at the address bar before entering credentials. Attackers rely on subtle typos (like replacing "m" with "rn" or using a completely different top-level domain, such as .co instead of .com).
• Be Skeptical of Sudden Urgency: Cybercriminals thrive on creating simulated crises (e.g., "Your account will be suspended in 2 hours"). Take a breath; legitimate organizations won’t force you into hurried, panicked actions.
• Implement Phishing-Resistant MFA: Traditional Multi-Factor Authentication (like SMS codes or push notifications) can be bypassed by advanced phishing kits. Implement hardware security keys (like FIDO2/WebAuthn) to prevent credential intercept. 
• Deploy Behavior-Based Email Security: Legacy filters that rely solely on blocklists of "known bad" links are no longer enough. Modern email security tools analyze the behavior, context and flow of inbound emails to detect anomalies.
• Update Security Awareness Training: Train your team to realize that "perfect grammar" no longer means "safe." Shift focus toward identifying suspicious behaviors, such as unexpected requests for wire transfers, sudden changes in vendor payment details, or requests to bypass standard security protocols. 

Our Promise to You

We’ll never ask you to verify your sensitive personal data or passwords via an unsolicited link. If you ever doubt the legitimacy of a communication claiming to be from us, please reach out to your Sales or Customer Care team for validation.

Learn more about how CDK Networking helps keep businesses protected from modern phishing threats.