‘Impersonation as a service’ the next big thing in cybercrime

Jessica Lyons reports:

English speakers adept at social engineering are a hot commodity in the cybercrime job market.

According to threat detection and response firm ReliaQuest, English-language social engineering is among the most in-demand skill sets on underground forums, with the number of job advertisements mentioning this particular talent more than doubling between 2024 and 2025. The security shop tracked 4 of these types of job listings last year, compared to 10 as of July 2025.

For organizations looking to defend against digital intruders, this also indicates that English-language social engineering attacks are likely to become even more frequent as criminals learn from their peers’ successes.

Identity security shop Nametag CEO Aaron Painter calls this new-ish attack technique “impersonation-as-a-service.”