# AI Phishing: Is Defender for Office 365 Enough? | AvantIT > AI-written phishing now fools careful teams. See how Defender for Office 365, Safe Links and Safe Attachments stop Business Email Compromise. Canonical: https://www.avantit.pt/en/blog/email-threat-has-changed-defender-for-office-365/ Source: AvantIT — https://www.avantit.pt (Microsoft Partner, Matosinhos, Portugal) --- [Back to blog](https://www.avantit.pt/en/blog/) ![Email security and Microsoft Defender for Office 365 overview] [Governance and Security](https://www.avantit.pt/en/blog/category/governance-security/) # The Email Threat Has Changed. Has Your Defence? AI-Powered Phishing and Defender for Office 365 ![AvantIT Team] AvantIT Team 2026-10-12 4 Email remains one of the most important attack surfaces for organisations, but the way attackers operate is changing. AI is making phishing, impersonation, Business Email Compromise and social engineering attacks more convincing, more personalised and harder to identify. Is your organisation protected against the way attacks happen today, or the way they used to happen? ## About this session This is Part 2 of The New Microsoft Security Challenge , a two-part webinar series from AvantIT and FRCI. It was delivered by FRCI on 1 October 2026 as an online session on Microsoft Teams. FRCI explored the evolving email threat landscape and how Microsoft Defender for Office 365 can help organisations respond with intelligent, multi-layered protection. The session moved the discussion from the changing threat landscape to the technologies and capabilities organisations can use to defend themselves. ## What the session covered - The current email-based threat landscape - How AI is making common email attacks more convincing - Phishing, impersonation and Business Email Compromise - Microsoft Defender for Office 365 - Personalised protection and threat intelligence - Safe Links and Safe Attachments - Multi-layered protection across Microsoft 365 - Microsoft 365 licensing and security capabilities - A practical live demonstration ## Why the threat has changed The classic warning signs, such as poor spelling, generic greetings and clumsy formatting, are disappearing. AI lets an attacker write fluent, personalised messages at scale, imitate a colleague’s tone and tailor a request to a role. Impersonation and Business Email Compromise attacks, which depend on looking credible, benefit most. That is why defence has to be layered. No single filter or awareness session is enough on its own. Protection needs to combine threat intelligence, checks on links and attachments at the moment of click, and controls across the whole Microsoft 365 environment, backed by users who know what to question. ## Part 1: what your own people are building The other half of the challenge sits inside your organisation. In Part 1, AvantIT looked at how citizen developers, Power Platform and AI agents are creating a new attack surface. Read the write-up and watch the video: [The New Microsoft Security Challenge, Part 1](https://www.avantit.pt/en/blog/new-microsoft-security-challenge-citizen-developers/). Together, the series is about three things: build faster, govern better, defend smarter. ## Not sure what your Microsoft 365 licences already cover? Many organisations already own more security capability than they use. [Talk to our team](https://www.avantit.pt/en/contact/) and we will help you work out what is switched on, what is missing and where to start. #### Editorial Policy At Avantit, we value authenticity and human expertise. This article was written and reviewed by our experts, ensuring technical accuracy grounded in real-world projects. We do not publish content generated exclusively by AI without validation by one of our consultants. ### Share and Comment Share: [Comment on LinkedIn](https://linkedin.com/company/avantitlda) ### Related Topics Microsoft Defender for Office 365 AI phishing Business Email Compromise Safe Links Safe Attachments email security Microsoft 365 Microsoft 365 licensing security ## Keep reading More articles on this topic. [The New Microsoft Security Challenge: Who Secures What Your Citizen Developers Build? Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI and AI agents have turned business users into developers. Watch Part 1 of our webinar series with FRCI and learn why that creates a new attack surface. 5](https://www.avantit.pt/en/blog/new-microsoft-security-challenge-citizen-developers/)[File and Version Chaos in Teams: The Invisible Cost Slowing Your Team Down Duplicate files, lost versions and "which one is the final document?" in Microsoft Teams cost time and money. Discover where the problem comes from and how to solve it strategically. 11 min](https://www.avantit.pt/en/blog/teams-file-chaos-versioning/)[Copilot Without Governance: The Risks of Adopting AI With No Policy Many companies scale Microsoft Copilot and create hundreds of agents with no inventory, no lifecycle and no data policy. Here are the real governance risks — and how to fix them. 10 min](https://www.avantit.pt/en/blog/copilot-governance-adoption-without-policy/) [See every article on Governance and Security](https://www.avantit.pt/en/blog/category/governance-security/) If this sounds familiar because it is your problem, not just curiosity: [Copilot governance and adoption](https://www.avantit.pt/en/services/data-ai/) ### Enjoyed this article? Subscribe to our newsletter to receive more content like this or contact us to learn how we can implement these solutions in your company. ### Send us a message Fill out the form below and we will get back to you shortly. 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