Cybercriminals Taking Advantage of 'Shadow' Alliances, AI

Europol's EU-SOCTA 2025 warns that hybrid threat actors—state-linked actors outsourcing operations to organized crime—are forming "shadow alliances" with criminal networks, while the rapid adoption of generative AI (LLMs), voice cloning and deepfake technologies is lowering barriers for large-scale social engineering, fraud, extortion and identity theft; the report cites real-world impacts such as a $25.6M deepfake-enabled fraud against engineering firm Arup.