This fraud briefing outlines seven emerging risks from May to July 2026, including executive impersonation, consumer scams, and AI-assisted deception. It shows how familiar-looking invoices, notices, and documents can bypass scrutiny.

Explores why having fraud controls is not the same as having effective ones, and why organisations must test whether existing monitoring, warnings, and procedures actually stop fraud as tactics evolve.

This quarterly fraud intelligence report analyzes February–April 2026 signals across 12+ countries, highlighting five emerging fraud trends and a more coordinated, industrialized model of social engineering built around exploiting trust at scale.

Report Fraud is the UK’s new national service for cybercrime and fraud reporting, replacing Action Fraud in England, Wales and Northern Ireland with a modern contact centre, online tool, and stronger victim support.

Artificial intelligence is moving from passive analysis to autonomous agents. Agentic AI describes systems capable of making decisions, initiating actions, and pursuing goals with minimal human input. While this offers huge efficiency gains, it also introduces complex cyber fraud and security risks. What is Agentic AI? Traditional AI models classify data or generate responses when prompted. Agentic AI goes further: it plans, adapts and interacts with systems and people to complete tasks. Examples include: Automated trading agents Customer service bots with payment access Shopping agents that can find the best deals and help the user do their shopping or book a holiday Potential benefits More efficient trading across multiple platforms. Reduction in customer service response times and wait times. Faster bookings at relatively cheaper prices. Fraud and Security Risks Autonomy Without Oversight: Agents may act beyond intended parameters, causing financial detriment. Adversarial Manipulat

Why do consumers respond to smishing messages despite knowing it exists? The Smishing Report 2022 dedicated an entire section to this paradox - revealing that the issue lies less in awareness, and more in behaviour under pressure. The awareness gap According to wider analysis, 95% of consumers could not reliably detect fraudulent SMS messages. This reflects what psychologists call overconfidence bias - people believe they can spot scams, yet fail to apply that confidence under stress. The fraud moment PORGiESOFT Security’s victim research and OSINT analysis revealed a pattern called the fraud moment - a short window between receiving a message and deciding to act. During that short interval, emotional response overrides rational thought. The report identified three high-risk triggers: Financial anxiety – messages about refunds or fines. Social pressure – fake job or delivery updates. Authority bias – impersonations of government or banks. In each case, the victim’s emotional state det