UK cyber agency warns AI attacks on infrastructure are likely by 2028
Britain's cyber agency says AI malware is highly likely to be used to attack the country's key services by 2028, The Guardian and The Associated Press report. That means places like power plants, airports and hospitals. The agency also says Russia and China will use AI often in their cyber attacks.
The warning came in the NCSC's annual review, The Guardian reports. The agency is part of the GCHQ spy agency.
“It is … highly likely that between now and 2028, AI-powered malware will have been used in a ransomware attack on UK CNI,” the NCSC said, according to The Guardian. CNI means critical national infrastructure, which covers energy, transport, defense, food, health and finance.
AI will help attackers scout targets, find weak spots in networks and write harmful code, the NCSC said, the paper reports.
Richard Horne, the head of the NCSC, said the technology will let weaknesses “tolerated for far too long” be found and used at a scale “once unimaginable,” the AP reports.
Horne said business leaders who “got away with tech on the cheap” will have to explain why food isn't on the shelves if they fail to invest in cyber safety, the AP says.
China's cyber activity is the most sophisticated and sustained cyber challenge facing the country, the report said, according to the AP.
Horne pointed to recent attacks on refrigeration systems in French supermarkets, the AP reports. He said fridges across Europe were hit, including in Britain. That was not an AI attack, he said, but one using old, unpatched technology linked to the internet with default passwords.
The AP says AI recently helped find critical flaws in a programming language used by about 70% of websites.
Alan Woodward, a cyber security professor at Surrey University, said the warning showed why countries and firms need access to the newest AI, The Guardian reports.
What we know: The NCSC says an AI-powered ransomware attack on UK infrastructure is highly likely by 2028.
What we don't: Which sectors face the most risk first.
Where outlets agree The Guardian and The Associated Press report the NCSC annual review's warning on AI cyberattacks.
Where they differ The cited reports agree on the key facts so far.