AI Phishing Is No. 1 With a Bullet for Cyberattackers

Cisco Talos and other security vendors report that AI-assisted phishing has surged to become the top initial access vector in Q1 2026, with highly personalized, polymorphic email lures producing much higher clickthrough rates and enabling credential/privileged-account compromise; the report highlights statistics such as 35% of investigated compromises starting with phishing, MFA weaknesses in 35% of cases, and AI-assisted phishing clickthroughs up to 54%, and recommends adopting defensive AI and stronger identity controls.