AI-powered Threats Accountants Must Know in 2025: Is AI a Friend or a Foe?

Fraud attacks and data breaches have evolved, and with artificial intelligence (AI) now in play, they continue to do so. Think of creative yet unobtrusive, costly, and painfully disruptive attacks—that’s the AI-powered reality. 

Imagine receiving an email that looks identical to a trusted client’s request, capturing the very tone, language, and message urgency that feels genuine, down to a signature that matches with unsettling accuracy. Or maybe the perfectly recognizable voice of a colleague on the other end of the line giving you precise instructions to transfer funds.   

But the catch? None of it is real. And this isn’t hypothetical.  

In early 2024, a finance employee at a multinational firm fell victim to an AI-assisted scam. The worker attended a video conference call with what he believed to be the company’s chief financial officer (CFO) and several colleagues—all of whom were AI-generated deepfakes. Despite initial suspicions, he was convinced when he saw and heard other call attendees who looked and sounded exactly like colleagues he recognized. The result? A staggering $25.6 million was transferred under the instructions of a CFO who never even existed. 

AI-powered fraud isn’t a distant threat; they are happening now and just keeps getting better every day. The tactics of cybercriminals that are typically known to men are rewritten by AI and social engineering attacks targeting vulnerabilities hidden in plain sight.   

Financial fraud has always been a battle of wits between cyber criminals and defenders, but AI has changed the game. No longer reliant on brute-force hacking, modern attackers use hyper-personalized, AI-driven schemes that target the very foundation of trust: identity.  

What was once clumsy, detectable scams have transformed into seamless attacks, carefully engineered to be nearly indistinguishable from legitimate communication—until the damage is done. Sometimes, that realization comes years too late.  

AI doesn’t just enhance existing fraud tactics; it creates entirely new ones.   

Deepfake identities, lifelike phishing scams, and real-time social engineering attacks now operate at a scale and sophistication that traditional cybersecurity defenses struggle to match.  

With AI reshaping the realm of financial fraud and identity theft, your only defense is to evolve with it. Trust nothing and verify everything because AI can be a cybercriminal’s greatest ally just as easily as it can be yours. 

The Double-Edged Sword: How AI and Globalization Are Redefining Fraud Risks 

According to the 2025 Identity Fraud Report by Entrust Cybersecurity Institute, the financial services sector ranks among the top three most targeted industries by fraudsters. Fraud rates remain highest for APAC-based businesses (6.8%), followed closely by those in the Americas (6.2%).  

Like most of us, cybercriminals now have the same access to Generative AI (GenAI) tools. This allows them to create convincing phishing emails including harvesting credentials to try and gain unauthorized access to bank accounts and other financial accounts, often disguised in malicious emails and personalized messages. 

For instance, SlashNext’s findings in The State of Phishing 2024 report revealed that there was a 4,151% surge in phishing attacks since ChatGPT was launched in November 2022.   

The similar report also highlighted that cybercriminals have become more effective in executing Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks which now account for 68% of BEC email attacks since GenAI chatbots became publicly available and heavily utilized.   

AI tools not only generate compelling emails but also do so quickly and effectively. This makes the target more engaged and convinced with real-time messaging that encourages a feedback loop.   

While you may be confident in using AI to your advantage, cybercriminals can do the same. They can now effortlessly penetrate your email systems and trick you into acting on requests by inciting urgency, allowing financial fraud to take place at breakneck speed without anyone noticing. 

AI can be a tool for good, but cybercriminals exploit it to bypass your cybersecurity defenses. 

Globalization and digitization have further amplified these risks. Instant communication, identity verification, and payment systems—once requiring human intervention, are now automated. 

While convenience has its perks, the rise of GenAI and the improvement of social engineering attacks powered by AI make anyone susceptible to fraudulent transactions at any time of day. This is particularly true in the finance industry and across all verticals like accounting and bookkeeping.  

As Entrust asserted in 2024, the interconnectivity of services has made it easier for fraud and other cyberattacks to circumvent borders, time zones, and other barriers.  

Moreover, cybercrimes take place around the clock, and cyber criminals could execute small to large-scale attacks with tools and resources available at their disposal, scaling their efforts once or multiple times depending on the effectiveness of their coordinated tactics.  

The sophistication of AI and the hyper-personalization of messaging from threat actors suggest it’s just a matter of time before a well-repeated tactic, presented in different ways, tricks you into falling for an AI-assisted attack. 

The threat isn’t invisible; it’s all out there, but traditional cybersecurity measures struggle to detect AI-powered breaches because these attacks mimic legitimate behavior and blend seamlessly into your day-to-day operations.   

AI-Powered Cyber Threats: Emerging Trends and Alarming Tactics  

Before 2025 even started, cyber threats had already been evolving at a rapid pace that’s far bolder and more realistic. Truth be told, the existing threats we know were just improved and made to be more effective in terms of approach, deceptive scripting, better targeting, and contextual relevance, all thanks to AI that makes a better buildup for exploiting vulnerabilities in humans and technology.   

Contrary to popular belief, network hacking isn’t just the name of the game now. The real challenge lies in protecting identity data throughout its entire journey, from data entry and credentials to how information flows between systems and users. And more often than not, human error is the weakest link in the chain.  

It’s all about manipulation and the tricks up on the cybercriminals’ sleeves that’s all for perpetuating human deception to successfully execute phishing and social engineering schemes, where people can be the unwitting entry point for cybersecurity breaches.  

So, what’s the real deal? 

In this new world of working, AI can be your ally but also an enemy, when it’s part of cybercriminals’ cohort.   

AI-powered tools now serve as the backbone for cybercriminal operations, dramatically increasing the volume, precision, and frequency of fraudulent activities. From phishing schemes to biometric deepfakes, the capabilities of GenAI have opened an unsettling new perimeter in perpetrating cybercrime, especially in the financial services industry. Here’s how the danger creeps in: 

1. Deepfake Creation: Tools like face-swap apps and advanced deepfake software enable cybercriminals to create lifelike videos and images. These are frequently used to bypass biometric verification during onboarding or to impersonate executives for unauthorized financial transactions.  
2. Voice Spoofing: AI-generated voice technology can replicate vocal patterns with eerie accuracy. Fraudsters exploit this to bypass voice recognition systems or trick victims into complying with fake instructions from trusted individuals.  
3. Phishing at Scale: GenAI tools, including ChatGPT, MidJourney, and DALL-E, have made it easier than ever to craft compelling, hyper-personalized phishing emails and fake visual content, boosting the success rate of fraudulent schemes.  
4. Data Harvesting: AI scrapes vast amounts of personal data from online sources, feeding into synthetic identity creation or credential stuffing attacks.  
5. Automated Credential Exploits: Bots armed with AI facilitate credential stuffing and mass application submissions using stolen or synthetic identities, making high-volume fraud scalable and effective. AI has made it alarmingly simple to create synthetic identities by combining authentic and fabricated personally identifiable information (PII). Fraudsters use these profiles to build legitimate-looking credit histories over time, gaining access to loans, credit cards, and even government benefits. 
6. Digital Document Manipulation: For the first time, digital document forgeries have surpassed physical counterfeits. Fraudsters now rely on AI tools to manipulate identity documents producing highly convincing forgeries at scale. Digital forgeries accounted for 57% of all document fraud in 2024, a staggering 244% increase from the previous year.   
7. Fraud-as-a-Service (FaaS): The dark web has become a marketplace for fraud, offering tools, tutorials, and even AI-powered services for those looking to exploit vulnerabilities. Known as Fraud-as-a-Service, these platforms lower the barrier to entry for amateur cybercriminals while scaling the capabilities of experienced fraudsters. From stolen PII to ready-made document templates and credential-stuffing bots, FaaS platforms make sophisticated fraud tools available at an alarming scale. This democratization of cybercrime has led to a surge in both high-volume and highly targeted attacks. 

One of the biggest challenges in fighting AI-assisted fraud is detecting when AI is being used in an attack. While certain tactics are easy to identify and their impact is clear in specific cases, others, like phishing scams are harder to trace back to AI. 

Proactive Cybersecurity Strategies for Accounting Professionals: Combatting AI-Driven Fraud 

The financial services industry thrives on trust, but AI-driven fraud threatens to undermine that foundation. Cybercriminals are exploiting vulnerabilities in identity verification, human behaviors, and workflows, which are areas that are integral to the accounting profession.  

To safeguard your practice, clients, and your firm’s reputation, it’s time to adopt a proactive approach to combating fraud. Here’s how accounting professionals can respond:

• Strengthen Identity Verification Processes: The rise of synthetic identities and digital document manipulation means traditional verification methods are no longer enough. Implement advanced fraud prevention measures, such as AI-Powered Identity Verification, to detect anomalies in digital documents and biometrics, ensuring clients’ identities are genuine. Additionally, use Liveness Detection to prevent deepfake attacks. 
• Adopt a Zero Trust Framework: Fraud doesn’t stop at onboarding—it can infiltrate any stage of the client lifecycle. A ‘Zero Trust’ approach ensures continuous verification, limiting access to sensitive systems and data based on roles and activities.  
• Educate and Empower Your Team: Human error remains a significant vulnerability, especially in phishing and social engineering attacks. Equip your team with the knowledge of identity protection and tools to recognize and respond to AI-enabled fraud schemes.  
• Monitor and Analyze Behavioral Patterns: Cybercriminals are now mimicking behavioral biometrics, making it harder to identify bots and fraudulent activity. Use AI tools to monitor patterns in system usage, transactions, and client behaviors. Detect and flag unusual login locations, multiple failed credential attempts, or unexpected changes in transaction patterns.  
• Partner with Trusted Cybersecurity Experts: Accounting professionals often juggle client responsibilities alongside regulatory compliance and operational efficiency. Partnering with cybersecurity providers or having an identity and access management platform, like Practice Protect, allows you to focus on your professional responsibilities while ensuring your systems are protected. 

Adapting to AI-Powered Fraud: Improving Your Defense Against Cybercrime 

Perhaps data breaches are nothing new to you, as scarcely a day passes without headlines reporting another attack. But what’s alarming is how these breaches have evolved. 

With AI and the advantages that come with it, rewriting the rules of executing a financial fraud or a cybersecurity breach, every piece of compromised data and stolen credential becomes another opportunity for cybercriminals to craft synthetic identities, execute deepfakes, or exploit vulnerabilities in financial systems. 

Breaches and fraud go together, because the more compromised data there is, the more personally identifiable information (PII) fraudsters have access to. This means more opportunities for identity fraud, now with an even greater edge as AI makes it harder to detect fraudulent schemes. 

When client trust is the currency of your accounting practice, understanding these AI-powered threats and the sophistication of attacks is one thing, and staying ahead of them is another. 

While AI can be your ally, it’s also a cybercriminal’s accomplice. So, you must evolve alongside it, not lag behind it. Partner with cybersecurity experts and adopt advanced tools and platforms to maintain identity and access management best practices to safeguard what matters most. Today, AI might be your friend, but tomorrow, it could be your foe.