AI-powered Black Friday scams are Evolving Fast: Forcepoint X-Labs

Here’s a timely piece of research just published by Forcepoint’s X-Labs team and authored by Lydia McElligott, Security Researcher, titled “How AI is Fueling a New Wave of Black Friday Scams” 

Given the upcoming holiday sales surge, this one (with a number of visual examples included) hits at the intersection of cybersecurity, retail behavior and the AI threat landscape.

Three key take-aways from the research:

  • AI is raising the stakes. Scams this year don’t look like the old “cheap deal” bait—they’re polished, coherent and realistic: phishing emails that mirror brand templates, cloned retail websites spun up in minutes, fake social-media ads. 
  • Trusted brands are primary targets. Attackers are leveraging familiarity with brands like Amazon, Temu and luxury labels to build trust and urgency in their scams. 
  • Defensive behaviours still work—but they require discipline. The article outlines actionable red flags: inspecting sender domains, hovering rather than clicking links, really questioning “too-good-to-be-true” discounts and using secure payment methods. 

The post is at: https://www.forcepoint.com/blog/x-labs/black-friday-scams-ai-phishing-guide

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