AI Phishing Hits Its Skynet Moment As Agents Outperform Human Red Teams
SiliconANGLE, Thursday, April 3rd, 2025
A new report out today from cybersecurity training services company Hoxhunt Ltd. reveals that artificial intelligence-powered phishing agents have surpassed elite human red teams in crafting effective phishing attacks, a milestone that arguably reshapes the cybersecurity threat landscape.
The report describes AI as having reached its 'Skynet moment for social engineering,' a reference to 'The Terminator' movie franchise, as after two years of development, AI agents developed by Hoxhunt created more effective simulated phishing campaigns than the company's human red teams could.
The testing, which has been run three times, found that in 2023, AI was 31% less effective than humans and then in November last year, it was only 10% less effective than humans. Forward to March and AI was found to be 24% more effective than humans.