Trust Is Under Attack: AI And Automation Fuel A New Wave Of Targeted Cybercrime

Auckland – Gen (NASDAQ: GEN), a global
leader powering Digital Freedom with a family of trusted
brands including Norton, Avast, LifeLock, MoneyLion and
more, today released its Q3
2025 Gen Threat Report, looking at trends from
July through September.

Gen, globally, recorded
140,000 AI-generated phishing sites, a surge in AI-created
scam text message campaigns, and a 82% increase in breach
incidents. Gen also blocked about 37 million
device-fingerprinting attempts each month, protecting
consumers from being tracked across sites even without
cookies. The findings reveal a threat landscape that is
increasingly personal, as attackers use AI to automate
persuasion and harvest high-value credentials across the
web.

“AI has changed the scale and speed of
cybercrime,” said Siggi Stefnisson, Cyber Safety CTO at
Gen. “It is being used to mass-produce scams, tailor
ransomware, and target people with precision we have never
seen before. Our mission is to stay one step ahead, using AI
for protection rather than deception, and to bring real-time
defense to every moment people live and work
online.”

AI-Powered Phishing
Factories

One of the strongest trends
this quarter was the rise of AI-built phishing sites that
look and feel just like real brands. Gen threat researchers
call these “VibeScams” because their success depends
less on coding and more on convincing. With AI web builders,
criminals can now create high-quality brand-look-a-like
phishing sites in minutes instead of hours.

Since
January 2025, Gen has blocked more than 140,000 of these
AI-generated scam sites. Activity remained high in Q3, with
New Zealand, France, Spain, Australia and Japan among the
top targets for web skimming attempts. A typical case begins
with the injection of code into a store’s checkout page to
capture card numbers and billing details as you type,
showing how easy it has become for scammers to mass-produce
deception at scale.

Web skimming attempts, those where
attackers inject malicious code into a store’s checkout
page to capture card numbers and billing details, increased
quarter over quarter, and New Zealand registered a 416%
increase.

“Web skimming attacks are on the rise and
Kiwis need to know it,” said Mark Gorrie, VP APAC at Gen
Digital. “Over the holidays people need to be very careful
with where they’re entering their personal and financial
information online. If you’re feeling unsure about the
retailer, that’s a good sign to stop what you’re doing
and find a place you can trust to buy from. If you don’t
you might just be giving away your credit card and other
financial details to scammers.”

Same
scam tactics deployed

Globally, breach
activity rose sharply, with breach events up 82% quarter
over quarter. Attackers are prioritising precision data
fuelled account takeovers and fraud: 83% of breaches
contained passwords, while basic contact detail breaches
declined.

Fake update scams, a type of Scam Yourself
Attack, closely mimic legitimate browser update prompts to
trick users into installing malware. These caused another
spike in New Zealand and were up
448%.

Text Scams Get
Smarter

Text-based fraud continues to
rise, driven by automation and AI-generated messages that
seem increasingly authentic. Gen Threat Labs analysed
hundreds of millions of SMS messages this quarter and found
recurring lure patterns designed to exploit urgency and
routine. The vast majority were financially motivated,
aiming to extract a small payment, capture card details, or
take over accounts. The top five campaigns alone accounted
for 26% of all malicious texts and included fake job offers,
refund scams, tax and fine alerts, investment pitches and
delivery notifications.

In New Zealand, tech support
scams (437%) and fake invoice scams (32%) surged. These
campaigns often begin with identical mass texts that funnel
victims to fake customer service chats or voice calls,
turning a few words on a screen into full-scale
deception.

Gen’s telemetry shows that this wave of
mobile-first fraud is accelerating, with criminals pairing
AI-written texts with cloned voices or chatbots to extend
scams across multiple channels.

Wiper
Attacks Spike

Wiper attacks are rapidly
increasing worldwide, and in New Zealand are up 219%. These
are traditionally driven by seeking to inflict damage rather
than steal money. These attacks aim to permanently destroy
data by erasing critical files, corrupting startup systems,
and deleting backups. The trend marks a shift toward
cyber-sabotage designed to cause maximum disruption and halt
business operations for extended
periods.

Digital Fingerprints on the
Rise

Even as consumers clear cookies and
use privacy tools, digital tracking continues to evolve.
Digital fingerprints are like a device’s unique signature,
a mix of settings and details that can identify someone
online even without cookies. Gen’s telemetry shows an
average of 247 million trackers blocked each month and a
steady 37 million digital fingerprints detected monthly. The
Gen family of trusted Cyber Safety brands, such as Norton
and Avast, helps protect consumer privacy from
fingerprinting with products that spot these signals and
block them or mask the information they seek. Discussions
about encryption have resurfaced in the UK and EU, with new
worries that proposed backdoors – ways for authorities to
access encrypted data – could make people’s data less
private and secure.

Protecting Yourself
and Your Business

The quarter also
included a major win for people and small businesses. Gen
researchers discovered a fatal flaw in the Midnight
Ransomware encryption and released a free decryptor that
allows victims to recover files without paying. The impact
of ransomware can reach far beyond large organisations, as
small businesses and individual consumers often face the
greatest losses when critical systems or personal files are
locked without backup.

Gen brands help protect people
every day from falling victim to the scams highlighted in
this report through solutions like Norton Scam Protection
included as part of the Norton 360 lineup, and Scam
Guardian, newly added scam protection included with Avast
Free Antivirus and Avast
Premium Security. For Identity Theft, LifeLock helps keep
people covered in the event of a breach or data
exposure.

To read the full Q3/2025 Gen Threat Report,
visit: https://www.gendigital.com/blog/insights/reports/threat-report-q3-2025

About
Gen

Gen (NASDAQ: GEN) is a global company
dedicated to powering Digital Freedom through its trusted
consumer brands including Norton, Avast, LifeLock, MoneyLion
and more. The Gen family of consumer brands is rooted in
providing financial empowerment and cyber safety for the
first digital generations. Today, Gen empowers people to
live their digital lives safely, privately and confidently
for generations to come. Gen brings award-winning products
and services in cybersecurity, online privacy, identity
protection and financial wellness to millions of people in
more than 150 countries. Learn more at GenDigital.com.

About
the Gen Threat Labs

Gen Threat Labs is the
Cyber Safety research team within Gen, focused on uncovering
and analysing the latest digital threats and scams
worldwide. Rooted in data, research, and technical
expertise, the team identifies patterns and risks that shape
the evolving cyber landscape. Their insights power the
security technologies that protect people across Gen’s
portfolio of trusted brands, including Norton, Avast,
LifeLock, and
others.

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