GCD AI RADAR
incidents/AIR-2025-0009

Microsoft Blocks Millions of Bot Signups Amid AI Fraud Surge

AI-enabled attack3 Confirmed exploitationAI phishing / social engineeringAI-assisted intrusion

Microsoft blocked 1.6 million bot signup attempts per hour and disrupted billions in fraud stemming from AI-enhanced scams. Threat actors leveraged generative AI to automate phishing lures, fake e-commerce sites, and customer service bots.

Details

type
AI-enabled attack
Attackers used AI as a meaningful part of a cyberattack against someone else.
categories
  • AI phishing / social engineeringprimary
    Phishing, lures and social engineering produced or personalised at scale with AI.
  • AI-assisted intrusion
    Threat actors using AI tooling in reconnaissance, exploitation, lateral movement or operations.
owasp llm top 10
no entry for these categories
mitre atlas
Both rows are derived from the type and categories (OWASP 2025 edition, ATLAS release 2026.09), not classified per record. How
severity
3 · Confirmed exploitation
Used against real targets; limited or unclear impact.
targets
Microsoft
products
Microsoft cloud services
incident date
16 Apr 2025
first reported
16 Apr 2025
origin
AI Incident Database
Derived from the AI Incident Database (CC BY-SA 4.0).
classifier confidence
0.92 · published at or above 0.80; see the methodology
tags
botnet · fraud · generative-ai-abuse
record
created 2026-10-18 06:33Z · updated 2026-10-18 06:59Z · json

Sources · 1

  1. 2025-04-16
    Microsoft Reportedly Blocks 1.6 Million Bot Signup Attempts Per Hour Amid Global AI-Driven Fraud Surge
    AI Incident Database · incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1037

Titles and links belong to their publishers. The summary above is written by GCD AI RADAR in its own words; data is CC BY-SA 4.0.

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