Newer social engineering techniques help attackers ignore entrenched security controls and limit the evidence they leave behind.
August 4, 2026
Phishing is evolving faster than it has in a long, long time.
Email-based phishing undisputedly has been the most dominant means of social engineering in the 21st century. It hasn't changed much in that time, and attackers followed pretty much the same basic principles, evolving mostly in their efficacy and ease of operation.
In the first half of 2026, though, attackers have been graduating in droves to relatively newer, less obvious phishing techniques. Crowdstrike tracked a doubling of voice phishing (vishing) attacks in this period, according to its newly released 2026 Threat Hunting Report. In the same time period, it tracked a 15-fold increase in device code phishing. Both techniques are helping state-sponsored threat actors and cybercriminal groups bypass traditional security controls.
