LFLearn with Faisal

The Attacker Didn't Trick. The AI Did: AI-Run Espionage and the $25 Million Deepfake Call

Faisal Adnan · 05 Nov 2026

November 2025: a largely AI-run espionage campaign

Anthropic published a report titled "Disrupting an AI-orchestrated cyber espionage campaign". It said a group it assessed as Chinese state-sponsored used Claude Code to attack around 30 organisations, and a small number were breached. The attackers tricked the model by telling it that it worked for a security firm, and by breaking the attack into small pieces that each looked innocent.

The numbers matter. Anthropic estimated that AI did 80 to 90% of the work. Humans stepped in at only four to six decision points per campaign, and the agent made thousands of requests, often several per second, which is a speed no human team could match. Anthropic had already argued that AI cyber capabilities were doubling every six months, and said this was the real-world proof of that trend.

One important detail from the report is that the model sometimes made mistakes, like overstating its findings. That limited the attack, but it did not stop it.

2024: the call where everyone was fake

CNN reported that the British engineering company Arup confirmed it was the victim of a deepfake scam in Hong Kong. An employee joined a video call with the company's "CFO" and several colleagues. Every other face on that call was a deepfake. Following their instructions, the employee transferred HK$200 million, about $25.6 million.

What these two cases teach

  • The barrier to attack is falling. An attacker no longer needs a team of skilled specialists. They need to know how to direct an agent.
  • A live video call is no longer proof of identity. Seeing a face and hearing a voice is not enough when both can be generated.
  • Defenders need AI too. The same tools that attack can monitor, triage and respond.

Simple steps for people and companies

  1. Families: agree a safe word that only you know, for calls that ask for money or urgent help.
  2. Companies: require a second channel to verify any large transfer, such as a call-back to a known number.
  3. Teams: slow down any request that is urgent, secret and involves money. That pattern is the signature of fraud.

Sources

Part of the talk "The AI Era" by Faisal Adnan, Riphah International University, 6 November 2026.