Every wave of technology excitement creates a new opportunity for cyberattackers, and AI is no exception. Microsoft Threat Intelligence has published research showing a growing set of campaigns that impersonate popular AI platforms and tools, including ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, and Claude.¹ The goal is to make phishing, search-driven malware campaigns, and malvertising—which is malicious advertising that uses online ads to lure users to harmful sites, downloads, or redirect chains—more convincing. A ChatGPT-themed phishing campaign sent up to 100,000 emails in a single day, tricking users into updating their ChatGPT Plus payment information and stealing personal and credit card data. These campaigns do not represent a compromise of the AI services being referenced. They represent something more familiar—cyberattackers doing what they have always done: borrowing trust. Right now, AI brands can carry significant trust and curiosity, making them attractive themes for cyberattackers to exploit.

Understanding why this trend matters and what it means for security teams is critical to shaping a modern protection strategy. The tactics are the same ones cyberattackers have always refined: urgency, curiosity, and impersonation of something familiar to lower a user’s guard. What has changed is the wrapper. A message about a new model release, a policy update from a familiar AI assistant, or a plugin that promises to make the workday easier is today’s version of the fake invoice or the shipping notification. AI-themed lures deserve attention not because they are a passing trend tied to one product cycle, but because AI remains a genuine source of excitement and urgency for employees and consumers alike, and cyberattackers are exploiting the human instinct to explore what is new, useful, or urgent.

The attack pattern is evolving

Microsoft’s research team recently observed several AI brand campaigns including:

• A ChatGPT-themed phishing kit built to harvest credit card data.
• A Claude-themed campaign that harvested credentials and access tokens through adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) techniques.
• Malvertising for a fake AI Windows plugin that delivered the Vidar stealer.
• Fraudulent DeepSeek installers distributed through GitHub.

In one case, an initial access broker tracked as Storm-3075 used AI-themed malvertising to distribute payloads for multiple downstream actors, a sign of how quickly this tactic is being commoditized across the criminal ecosystem.

What ties these campaigns together is not sophistication in the traditional sense. It is patience and precision in exploiting a moment. Threat actors are capitalizing on anticipated launches and emerging trends, layering multi-stage redirection chains and disposable infrastructure to slip past both users and defenses. That has real implications for security leaders: it means these incidents cannot be evaluated one surface at a time. A single AI-themed lure can begin as an email, become a malicious link, trigger a suspicious download, and end as an identity or endpoint compromise. Organizations that assess each of those as an isolated event are always a step behind. Organizations that connect them see the full shape of the cyberattack, often early enough to stop it.

Turning AI lures into dead ends with Microsoft Defender

In practice, protection starts before the user ever engages with the lure. Microsoft Defender’s anti-phishing policies can help detect spoofing and impersonation attempts, including user and domain impersonation, first-contact messages, mailbox intelligence signals, and other suspicious sender characteristics. For an AI-themed lure, that might look like a fake “Copilot policy update,” a spoofed support notice, or a lookalike domain designed to make a credential collection page feel legitimate.

If the campaign relies on links, Defender’s Safe Links provides URL scanning and detonation during mail flow, plus time-of-click verification when a user selects a link in email, Microsoft Teams, or supported Microsoft 365 apps. That is important when cyberattackers use redirect chains, delayed activation, or links that appear benign at delivery but later resolve to phishing infrastructure, fake sign-in pages, or malicious downloads.

For campaigns that use fake installers, malicious downloads, or weaponized attachments, Safe Attachments adds another layer by detonating attachments in a virtual environment before delivery when policies are configured. For example, if a message promotes a “new AI plugin” but includes a harmful attachment, Safe Attachments can analyze the file for malware, ransomware, or phishing behavior before it reaches the user. If a cyberthreat is identified after delivery, Defender’s post-delivery filtering capabilities help remove malicious content from mailboxes and reduce the window of exposure.

Protect against multi-stage attacks with attack disruption

But AI-powered attacks don’t stop at email. Their objective is to gain the highest level of access possible, using compromised accounts as a foothold to move across identities, devices, and data. When a cyberattack moves beyond the inbox, Defender helps connect the evidence. Signals from email and collaboration tools, endpoints, identities, and software as a service (SaaS) apps are correlated into an attack story so analysts can see whether the same lure led to a clicked link, a downloaded payload, risky sign-in behavior, or endpoint activity.

As cyberattackers expand beyond email to gain broader access across the environment, Defender moves from detection to disruption. For multi-stage, multi-domain attacks like business email compromise or AiTM, Defender’s powerful, built-in response capability, attack disruption, will contain the compromised asset during the attack to prevent further lateral movement while security teams investigate and remediate. Attack disruption contains more than 81,000 compromised user accounts monthly and is now disrupting more than 45,000 AiTM attacks each month.

In a recent case study, Defender disrupted a business email compromise attack within four minutes of the initial activity (Figure 4). While response times may vary by scenario, this case shows the impact of attack disruption on a real cyberthreat. The cyberattacker used a convincing document-sharing lure to trick a user to start a legitimate Microsoft device code sign-in flow, which avoided traditional credential theft techniques. Defender recognized the resulting device code authentication and follow-on activity as suspicious, correlated signals across identity and email telemetry, and disrupted the attack within four minutes before the attacker could establish persistence, create inbox rules, or execute payroll fraud.

The takeaway

AI brands are the new bait, but the underlying lesson is bigger than any single campaign. As cyberattackers continue to exploit the momentum around AI, organizations should expect social engineering to become more targeted, more believable, and more difficult to evaluate in isolation.

The answer is not to treat every new lure as a brand-new category of risk. It is to build a protection model that makes trust harder to exploit across the full attack chain. Microsoft Defender helps organizations do that by connecting prevention, detection, investigation, and response across the attack path, so AI-themed lures are harder to deliver, harder to trust, and harder to turn into broader compromise.

To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.

¹AI brands as bait: How threat actors are using the AI hype in social engineering, Microsoft Threat Intelligence. June 8, 2026.

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We are excited to share that Microsoft has been named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Extended Detection and Response Platforms, Q2 2026. Microsoft ranked the highest of any vendor evaluated in the Strategy category and is the only vendor to receive the highest score in Vision. Microsoft also received the highest possible scores across the current offering criteria of identity detection, cloud detection, SIEM replacement, Threat Intelligence, Threat hunting, Administrative controls, and Training.

In the report, Forrester writes that “Microsoft articulates a compelling vision to build a Frontier approach to security, bringing people and AI together while the platform continuously shields against and disrupts attacks.”

A new frontier for XDR

That recognition reflects how Microsoft sees the next phase of XDR evolution. As cyberattackers use AI to scale and accelerate their campaigns, defenders need more than correlated signals. They need a system that brings together data, people, and workflows so security can operate with the same speed and coordination.  

At Microsoft, XDR is that foundation. It connects signals across identities, endpoints, email, software as a service (SaaS) apps, and cloud workloads into a shared layer of context bringing together the signals, workflows, and actions security runs on. 

That foundation extends directly into how protection and operations are delivered. Microsoft Defender’s native capabilities continuously shield against attacks with built-in, system-level defenses, while embedded agents help triage alerts, hunt for threats, and deliver intelligence in the flow of work. The result is a shift from fragmented response to coordinated, system-level defense—where decisions, actions, and protection move together by default.

Attack disruption is one of the clearest expressions of that vision today. It uses cross-domain signals and AI to stop multi-stage cyberattacks like ransomware and adversary-in-the-middle attacks while they are active and unfolding.

Forrester specifically notes attack disruption in the report, “As well as its roadmap, it (Microsoft) has built unique features, like automatic attack disruption, to help deliver on its vision.”

World-class threat intelligence at the core

Threat intelligence is a brand-new evaluation criterion in this Wave and Microsoft earned the highest possible score. This reflects a broader shift: intelligence is no longer a bolt-on, but fundamental to how modern XDR platforms detect, prioritize, and disrupt cyberattacks.

Microsoft Threat Intelligence is built on a broad vantage point, analyzing 100 trillion signals each day. That intelligence is delivered directly into the analyst experience, which provides context on threat actors: their motivations and tactics appear inside incidents, alongside affected assets, and tied to response actions.

The intelligence is built into detections, attack disruption, hunting, and AI that helps analysts make sense of what they’re seeing. It’s also continuously informed by Microsoft’s global security research teams tracking nation-state actors, ransomware groups, and emerging cyberthreats, which brings frontline insight directly to defenders.

Innovation that reinforces continued leadership

We believe Microsoft’s ranking as a leader in this report is a reflection of the pace of innovation across the Defender portfolio over the past year. Highlights include:

Adaptive defense to contain active attacks: Attack disruption now expands autonomous protection to predict and shield against a threat actor’s next move during active cyberattacks. It acts just in time to defend against common attacker tactics such as group policy objects (GPOs), Safeboot, and identity compromise, with new controls that now include device isolation.

Native protection across cloud, identity, and SIEM: Microsoft delivers differentiated protection across cloud and identity by natively harnessing signals from Azure and Microsoft 365 coverage. Combined with Microsoft Sentinel’s powerful security information and event management (SIEM) and threat hunting capabilities, this foundation goes beyond detection, enabling disruption of attacks directly within the SOC for critical data sources including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Okta, and Proofpoint, fundamentally turning your SIEM into a threat protection solution. 

Microsoft Security Copilot alert triage agent: Security Copilot agents in Defender help security operations center (SOC) teams investigate faster, automate response, and prioritize high-risk cyberthreats. Microsoft recently extended the Security Copilot alert triage agent to cloud and identity, extending assistive and autonomous AI to two of the most critical attack surfaces security teams defend every day. By helping analysts triage alerts faster, surface high-value context, and move more quickly from signal to action, these new capabilities strengthen the SOC where speed and precision matter most. That momentum reinforces that Microsoft received the highest possible scores in both identity detection and cloud detection.

Securing local AI agents: Microsoft recently announced endpoint security for local AI agents at Microsoft Build 2026. Defender helps security teams gain visibility into AI agents running on devices, assess exposure across identities and resources, block malicious activity in real time, and investigate agent activity through Advanced Hunting.

What this recognition means for our customers

Being named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Extended Detection and Response Platforms, Q2 2026 reinforces Microsoft’s commitment to helping defenders stay ahead of modern cyberattacks. We believe this recognition reflects the strength of our vision, the breadth of our protection across identities, endpoints, email, cloud, and applications, and our continued investment in bringing people and AI together in the SOC.

As the threat landscape continues to evolve, we remain focused on helping customers investigate faster, respond more effectively, and strengthen their security operations with an integrated platform built for today’s cyberattacks.

Learn more

• Access the full Forrester Wave™ report to read the full analysis behind Microsoft’s positioning as a Leader.
• Learn more about Microsoft Defender.
• Try Microsoft Defender today with a free trial.

To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.

Forrester does not endorse any company, product, brand, or service included in its research publications and does not advise any person to select the products or services of any company or brand based on the ratings included in such publications. Information is based on the best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. This report is part of a broader collection of Forrester resources, including interactive models, frameworks, tools, data, and access to analyst guidance. For more information, read about Forrester’s objectivity here .  

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As threats become more coordinated and faster to execute, endpoint protection has become the proving ground for modern defense. For the seventh consecutive time, Microsoft has been named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Endpoint Protection. We believe this reflects both the strength of our technology, and the trust customers place in Microsoft Defender. 

Microsoft Defender delivers industry-leading Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), powered by global threat intelligence and built for the scale and speed of today’s attacks. For many of our customers, Defender’s endpoint capabilities are the foundation for a coordinated system of defense that spans endpoints, identities, email, apps, cloud, and data.

Bringing these signals together changes what’s possible. It enables earlier detection, stronger prevention, and capabilities like predictive shielding that help stop attacks before they spread. This is the shift underway in security: from isolated tools to a connected system that can see across the environment, understand what’s changing, and take action in real time. It’s what makes the next generation of AI-driven, agentic security possible and helps defenders stay ahead of threats, not just respond to them.

Sustained innovation to stay ahead of changing threats

Over the past year, Microsoft has introduced key advancements to endpoint protection that have empowered defenders to stay ahead of evolving cyberthreats, including:

Proactive defense during attacks: Attack disruption now expands autonomous protection to predicting and blocking an adversary’s next move during active attacks. It acts just in time to harden against some of the most common attacker tactics, such as group policy objects (GPOs), Safeboot, and identity compromise, to stop lateral movement and defend dynamically.

Custom telemetry: With new custom data collection capabilities, Defender makes it easy for security teams to collect specialized data directly within the Defender portal. It allows organizations to extend their endpoint telemetry beyond the 200+ default signals to support tailored detections and advanced hunting scenarios, such as AMSI for hunting over script content and Kerberos for auth-based and network attacks.

Simplified onboarding: To help security teams onboard simply and securely, we’ve built new Defender deployment tools for Windows and Linux, which handle the entire process for you. Just download a single package and it will dynamically adapt to the operating system, take care of prerequisites, and install the latest version of Defender available as needed for older devices that don’t have it already built in. The Defender deployment tools eliminate friction, automate tricky steps, and provide predictability throughout the onboarding journey.

Sovereign-ready protection: Defender enables customers to meet data storage and privacy needs while operating under public, sovereign, hybrid, or disconnected models. Its multi‑tenant architecture enables organizations to balance centralized security visibility with localized control over their data, reflecting a shift from basic compliance to operational governance.

End-to-end security for local AI agents: Microsoft announced agentic endpoint security as a part of A365 to discover, govern, and block AI agents such as OpenClaw and previously unseen applications running locally on endpoints.

Innovations such as these represent the continued commitment to drive the next wave of innovation. Stay tuned for more exciting advancements at Microsoft Build on June 2^nd.

Learn more

If you’re not yet taking advantage of Microsoft’s leading endpoint security solution, visit Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and start a free trial today to evaluate our leading endpoint protection platform. 

Are you a regular user of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint? Share your insights on Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and get rewarded with a $25 gift card on Gartner Peer Insights™.

To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection, Deepak Mishra, Evgeny Mirolyubov, Nikul Patel, 26 May 2026.

Gartner is a registered trademark and service mark and Magic Quadrant is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved. 

This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. 

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