MITRE ATLAS 2026.09 / technique reference

AML.T0052.001
Deepfake-Assisted Phishing

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EnterpriseInitial AccessLateral MovementSource maturity: Feasible

MITRE source definition

Adversaries may use deepfakes (AI-generated synthetic images, audio, or video) in phishing campaigns to impersonate trusted individuals, executives, or organizations. These attacks exploit human trust by presenting fraudulent voice or video communications as legitimate, enabling adversaries to manipulate targets into disclosing credentials, transferring funds, or granting access to systems.

Voice deepfakes (AI-cloned voices) are used in vishing [[vishing]] (voice phishing) attacks over telephone or VoIP. Adversaries can clone a target's voice using a few seconds [[valle]] of publicly available audio from speeches, earnings calls, podcasts, or social media [[voice]]. These cloned voices are then used in pre-recorded voicemail messages or live phone calls. Video deepfakes can impersonate a trusted individual's face and voice. Adversaries use publicly available video from company meetings, earnings calls, or social media to create convincing AI-generated video of target individuals. They are used in live video conference calls or recorded video messages. AI-generated content has advanced to the point that it is often difficult to identify as synthetic [[fbi]].

Adversaries may first perform Obtain Capabilities: Generative AI followed by Generate Deepfakes in preparation for their Phishing campaign. Deepfake phishing campaigns often utilize other communication channels (such as email, SMS, or instant messaging) for layered social engineering attacks [[aiid839]].

These attacks span a wide range of victims and attack types, demonstrating the breadth of deepfake-enabled fraud. Adversaries have conducted extensive deepfake-assisted phishing campaigns against the individuals, including targeted scams [[aiid564]] [[oecd1]] [[aiid1280]] [[aiid1285]], as well as large-scale credential harvesting campaigns targeting billions of users [[aiid839]] [[aiid941]]. Adversaries have used deepfakes to impersonate executives [[aiid1100]], causing business entities to suffer significant financial losses from [[aiid634]] [[aiid147]]. There are also reports of government officials being targeted in widespread campaigns [[fbi]] [[aiid927]].

The attacks span communication channels including voice deepfakes for vishing [[aiid567]] and video deepfakes in conference calls [[aiid634]], as well as multi-channel campaigns combining phone, email, and messaging platforms [[aiid839]].

Source modified 2026-05-27. Reproduced from the pinned ATLAS release; inline technique links resolve to local reference pages.

Source-backed defensive context

MITRE mitigations

MITRE case studies

No explicit relationship in this pinned source.

These are explicit source relationships, not independently reproduced incidents or validated detection coverage. The local relationship indexes link back to the pinned MITRE source.

Detection and collection design

No executable detector is supplied by this ATLAS source import. Define detection against the specific behavior in the full definition above. MITRE case-study and mitigation relationships supply context, not tested rule coverage.

No explicit AI Telemetry Logging mitigation relationship was found for this technique. Do not manufacture a sensor mapping from its tactic.

Depending on the selected scenario, the experiment may need dataset/model versions, data-access and build audit records, inference or application traces, or agent tool authorization records. These are planning options, not asserted mappings. Minimize sensitive prompt/data capture and retain provenance.

Anomaly detection design

No exact ATLAS anomaly detector is validated here. Select a measurable feature from the behavior definition; compare like-for-like model versions, workloads and identities. Changes caused by model upgrades, retrieval corpora or legitimate workload shifts must be controls, not automatically labelled attacks.

Baseline and validation methodology · AI-security ecosystem

Tools and reproducible source scenarios

No lab-tool association is invented from the technique name. Inspect the exact source scenarios below for the tools and environment actually used; a case study is not itself an executable or safe lab.

No explicit case study is linked in this pinned source. A custom, authorized procedure is required.

Simulation experiment plan

Select an owned, disposable system implementing AML.T0052.001 Deepfake-Assisted Phishing. Use synthetic data and sandboxed tools; disable production credentials, external side effects and data exfiltration. For poisoning or supply-chain tests, use throwaway artifacts rather than real training or deployment pipelines.

  1. State the exact trust boundary and expected observable behavior.
  2. Pin model, application, dataset, tool permissions and evaluation inputs.
  3. Capture baseline and scenario traces, an authorized look-alike, and a missing-telemetry control.
  4. Evaluate the detector against independently labelled results; do not substitute model output claims for observed tool actions.
  5. Restore state and preserve redacted evidence.

Experiment worksheet — not fabricated telemetry

The export below is a planning record, not a native event, positive attack fixture or execution result. Unknown fields deliberately remain null.

{
  "schema": "1200km.atlas.experiment-plan.v1",
  "technique_id": "AML.T0052.001",
  "simulation": false,
  "target": "REQUIRES_OWNED_LAB",
  "source_scenario": [],
  "input_artifact_hash": null,
  "system_version": null,
  "expected_observable": null,
  "native_telemetry_location": null,
  "baseline_reference": null,
  "result": "not_run"
}

Simulation and telemetry boundary

This is a technique reference page, not a runnable simulation. No ATLAS-specific telemetry mapping, local attack execution or detector validation is asserted. MITRE maturity describes its source evidence, not a 1200km lab result.

For broader context—not technique-specific control mappings—see AI Security, AI Security Course, and detection-validation methodology.

Provenance and attribution

Immutable MITRE ATLAS source · Import provenance · Attribution and transformation notice · Apache License 2.0

Copyright 2021-2026 MITRE. Source text and explicit relationships are retained; navigation, formatting and local links are provided by 1200km.