AI Is the New Phisher: How Prompt Injection Turns Trusted Assistants Into Personalized Social Engineers

Traditional phishing begins with an unsolicited message.

An attacker sends an email or text message, hoping the recipient will open it, trust it and take the requested action. Most phishing campaigns are therefore a numbers game: send enough messages, and eventually someone will click.

AI assistants introduce a different and potentially more effective model.

Instead of contacting the victim directly, an attacker can manipulate the AI assistant the victim already trusts. The malicious message is no longer delivered by an unknown sender. It appears as a direct and relevant answer from the assistant the user intentionally contacted.