At the beginning of 2026, a new trend is spreading across social media platforms: users share personal photos and use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to sketch portraits or create illustrations based on life, work and "everything AI knows" about them.
The results received are animated versions of users themselves in the office environment, family or characteristic factors of the profession. These images are appearing densely on Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn.
Although this trend brings interesting and creative experiences, cybersecurity experts warn that participating can inadvertently leak private information and create conditions for bad actors to build personalized scam scenarios targeting a wide range.
According to experts from Kaspersky, this requirement is not simply a regular image processor. To get the most realistic photos, users have unintentionally allowed AI tools to exploit all data in personal records without setting any limits.
This stems from the very command: "Create animated photos of me and my work based on everything you know about me." In addition to the reference photo provided by the user, AI also synthesizes a series of information such as company name, business logo, title, place of residence, daily habits, hobbies and even private details about family to create a photo according to the "trend".
Each information and data mentioned above is an important piece to outline a detailed digital profile about you. When images, words and context are linked together, your habits, relationships, frequent places, or professional responsibilities are all exposed.
This is a valuable source of information for cybercriminals to stage sophisticated scams. As a result, when a scammer knows where you work, your job title or even your relative, the trap will become more convincing than ever. Victims easily fall into the trap and provide sensitive information or money.
Recommendations
Avoid entering information that can identify individuals in the command, such as full name, title, company name, city, address, schedule or daily routine - even if it is only intended to "personalize" the image.
Do not upload images that display logos, employee cards, documents, license plates, computer screens, building facades or any factors that may help locate or speculate which organization you are working for.
Do not share information or images of minors, do not disclose family details - information that may be used to impersonate relatives or design scams based on emotional elements.
Carefully check the platform's privacy policies and access rights before use, especially policies related to content storage and data use for training or service improvement purposes.
Strengthen digital solutions to proactively protect yourself, so as to help minimize risks from malicious links, dangerous downloads and scams related to these trends, while enhancing the safety of devices used to create and share content.
