The report says generative AI such as ChatGPT led to a 135% increase in phishing email attacks.

CTOnews.com April 4 news, according to the latest research report published by network security company Darktrace, attackers use generative AI such as ChatGPT to increase the number of social engineering attacks by 135% by increasing text descriptions, punctuation marks and sentence lengths.

The report, which looked at more than 6700 employees in the UK, US, France, Germany, Australia and the Netherlands, found that 82 per cent were concerned that hackers could use generative AI to create fraudulent emails that were indistinguishable from real communications.

The report also found that 30% of employees worldwide have been duped by fraudulent emails or text messages in the past. Additionally, 87 percent are concerned that the amount of personal information provided about them online could be used for phishing and other email scams.

The frequency of fraudulent emails and text messages has increased by 70 percent in the past six months, and 79 percent of companies 'spam filters incorrectly block important legitimate emails from reaching their inboxes.

The top three characteristics CTOnews.com users believe this email is a phishing attack are:

Emails require users to click on links or open attachments (68%)

From unknown senders or unexpected content (61%)

Misuse of spelling and grammar (61%)