UK faces AI-boosted attacks on critical infrastructure in two years, cyber chief warns

Britain is facing a moment of ‘enormous consequence’ for national cyber security as threats from AI agents and hostile nations rise.

The chief executive officer of the National Cyber Security center (NCSC) will warn today that the UK needs to get a grip on the matter before finding itself in a worse situation down the line.

The NCSC’s annual report suggests Britain could face AI-boosted attacks on critical national infrastructure within the next two years.

Hackers demanding ransom payments are ‘highly likely’ to weaponise AI in the UK, it added, and hostile states including Russia and China will also use the tech to pursue their ‘goals’ and meddle abroad.

Dr Richard Horne will issue the sobering warning today, comparing the UK’s position today to a ‘Sliding Doors’ moment, in reference to the 1998 film.

‘In the coming months, we face a real prospect of an unprecedented rise in the number of cyber incidents,’ he will warn.

‘But we must be clear that is not because AI has invented new ways to attack us, but because vulnerabilities that have been tolerated for far too long can now be discovered and exploited at a once unimaginable scale.’

Security expert Will Geddes told Metro that the NCSC’s report citing a potential attack in two years underestimates the threat facing the UK.

‘AI-boosted attacks on critical national infrastructure could happen within the next two months,’ he admitted. ‘AI is being used in so many different ways.’

‘Life support’ systems could break down

The NCSC annual report said that, this year, its incident management team received 1,831 reports of cyber attacks, of which 337 required support, and 80 were nationally significant.

The team also warned 8,500 organisations when their systems had been compromised by attackers, the report said.

Mr Geddes explained: ‘Many companies are using AI to do what we call penetration tests on their own networks to find out where their vulnerabilities are, what they haven’t patched, what they haven’t fixed, and what could be exploited by an external hacker.

‘People are also beginning to use that in an offensive sense, to assess where the vulnerabilities in a particular system are and how to breach them.’

Critical infrastructure in the country is particularly at risk, Mr Geddes added, citing power grids, water supply, phone connections and more.

‘Anything that gives us “life support” runs on an internet interface. ICU units, emergency services, communications, everything. You remove any one of those, or all of them – we’re in the dark and incredibly vulnerable,’ Mr Geddes said. 

‘AI is making these attacks far more automated, so you can run multiple attacks at the same time. And it could be set up and programd to be repetitive, so it could just continue.

Threats from hostile nations

Dr Horne will also warn that China is best positioned to use AI to target UK critical national infrastructure.

Mr Geddes agrees: ‘China is more likely to use malware for stealing data. Russia is more likely to use it for sabotage.’

But hostile state actors often don’t operate cyber attacks from their own countries, but opt to use third parties for plausible deniability on the international stage.

‘GCHQ is warning the UK to get a grip on this now because if we don’t, we’re going to find ourselves in a worse situation down the line. The threat is so great that we’ve got to tell the general public that although technology is simplifying our lives, we are becoming more reliant on it,’ Mr Geddes said.

‘Think about it – pick your partner and your two best friends; can you, off the top of your head, recount what their telephone numbers are?

‘We used to be able to. We’re so reliant on that technology that we don’t actually think: what would we do if that technology goes down?’

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