Protect the business as threats become more intelligent

A request arrives from the CEO. The voice sounds right, the context is credible and the matter is urgent. But is that enough to approve a payment, share sensitive information or grant access to your systems?

With deepfakes, voice cloning and false identities, attackers can impersonate executives, colleagues, customers or suppliers. This impersonation exploits the trust that makes daily work possible. When an identity can be imitated, sensitive decisions need verification that holds up even when image and voice seem convincing.

Social engineering influences people to act on an attacker’s terms. AI can tailor language, messages and pretexts to a recipient’s role and situation. An attack may begin with an apparently harmless message and develop into a request that feels both reasonable and urgent.

Protection must therefore go beyond spotting spelling mistakes and suspicious links. Clear procedures for payments, information sharing and access must be combined with relevant technical safeguards and practical training. Employees need to verify requests and question senders, even when they appear to come from senior leadership.

Misinformation can spread unintentionally. Disinformation is created or distributed with the intent to deceive. AI can contribute to both, from incorrect summaries to fabricated documents, fake news and manipulated audio and video.

The consequences can include poor business decisions, reputational damage or a crisis based on something that never happened. What do you do if a deepfake shows an executive speaking about the company? Or if an AI-generated report relies on sources that do not exist?

Protection begins with clear requirements for source checking and verification. You also need the readiness to rapidly assess, address and manage false information about your organisation.

An AI assistant that reads documents, searches for information or handles email encounters content you do not always control. Through prompt injection, an attacker can try to make the system follow hidden or misleading instructions within that content.

The risk becomes particularly important when AI is authorised to retrieve sensitive data, send messages or change information in other systems. You must assess what the solution can access, which actions it may perform and when human approval is required.

Secure AI use requires considered permissions, testing and monitoring of the complete solution. Security instructions to the model must be complemented by controls in the surrounding systems.

When employees use AI services outside approved environments, information may end up in services you have neither assessed nor control. This shadow AI can include meeting assistants, browser extensions and document-analysis tools.

Reducing exposure requires understanding which services are used, what information they can access and which integrations have been approved. Employees also need useful alternatives and clear rules. Security becomes stronger when it works in the reality of the working day.

What happens if the finance team receives a convincing payment instruction from a fake CEO? If an AI agent discloses information? Or if a manipulated video begins circulating about the organisation?

A scenario exercise reveals whether responsibilities, contact paths and decision procedures work under pressure. It helps identify gaps before a real attack does. The more workflows use AI, the more important it is to prepare how you will detect, contain and manage an incident.

Shadow AI emerges when employees independently adopt AI services and other SaaS applications outside the organisation’s approved environment. The tools may appear harmless and efficient, but their terms, data storage, security standards and subprocessors have often not been reviewed.

When documents, customer details or code are pasted, uploaded or connected to such a service, data, personal information, source code and trade secrets can leave your control. The information may be stored in other countries, used to improve the service or become accessible to more parties than the employee realises.

Reducing the risk requires visibility into which applications are in use, assessment of vendors and integrations, and clear rules for information that must never be shared. Employees also need approved alternatives that meet their real needs, otherwise adoption will continue out of sight.