Organizations invest heavily in technology, yet today’s most costly breaches are increasingly slipping through traditional defenses. The reason? Attackers target human psychology, now supercharged by AI.

Using tools like deepfakes, cybercriminals can impersonate high-ranking executives with alarming precision, manipulating trust to override judgment. These bad actors tap into human nature—fear, trust and authority—with striking effectiveness. In one case, a finance employee at a multinational firm paid $25 million to scammers after a deepfake video conference call with someone posing as the CFO.

What makes this threat so effective is how AI amplifies psychological tactics—gathering intel at a scale and using it to exploit human trust with speed and precision.

The following are five examples of the psychological tactics at the heart of social engineering attacks that I've found most alarming, along with some of my best practices for addressing them...