Security experts have warned of a huge uptick in automated phishing activity abusing the Axios user agent and Microsoft’s Direct Send feature. ReliaQuest claimed in a new report today that it observed a 241% increase in phishing activity using Axios between June and August 2025. Axios accounted for nearly a quarter (24%) of all malicious user-agent activity analyzed in the period, making it 10 times more common than any other agents tracked by ReliaQuest. The threat intelligence vendor said Axios-powered attacks had a 58% success rate versus just 9% for incidents without the user agent. What started as a campaign targeting executives and managers in sectors like finance, healthcare and manufacturing has now broadened to regular internet users, it added. Axios is a lightweight,…