For most of the digital era, fraud had friction. It required effort, time, and enough technical inconsistency that security systems — or even a careful human — could spot the seams. That assumption no longer holds. Brand impersonation has evolved into a scalable, automated industry powered by generative AI. What used to be isolated phishing attempts has become a distributed ecosystem of cloned identities, synthetic media, and disposable infrastructure that can convincingly replicate trusted orga