Artificial intelligence and cyber intrusion

The UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has released an assessment predicting that by 2028, Russia, China and other nation states will almost certainly use AI-powered cyber capabilities to achieve their geopolitical goals, resulting in an increase in the scale and speed of sophisticated cyber attacks against the UK. The assessment examines current AI-enabled threat trends and projects three possible scenarios for the threat landscape through 2028.

The NCSC Assessment (NCSC-A) serves as the authoritative voice on cyber threats to the UK, combining classified intelligence, industry knowledge, academic material and open source to provide independent key judgements that inform policy decision making.

Three Scenarios

The NCSC outlines three plausible scenarios for the future of AI-driven cyber threats. The baseline scenario predicts an increased global threat from AI-cyber capability, while the pessimistic scenario suggests AI-cyber capability proliferation will far outstrip the UK's defensive ability. The optimistic scenario envisions AI-cyber development slowing, allowing the UK to develop robust countermeasures.

By 2028, it is highly likely that many systems will remain vulnerable to attack from AI-cyber tools that identify and exploit system weaknesses. Attackers will likely display less caution over losing access, as the cost to replace is minimal. It is also likely that attackers will target known vulnerabilities in critical national infrastructure (CNI) legacy technology and new attack surfaces created by AI deployment within CNI.

The assessment identifies five key drivers influencing the AI-cyber threat to the UK by 2028, including geopolitical tensions, state-sponsored actors' capabilities, the availability of AI-powered cyber tools, vulnerability discovery rates, and the implementation of defensive capabilities in UK CNI.

State-Sponsored Threats

China and Russia are identified as the most significant state-sponsored threats. Despite some quality lag in chip development, China has made significant strides in AI capabilities with a focus on indigenous technologies. Russia has likely leveraged open-source AI models, adapting them to suit intelligence requirements rather than developing in-house capabilities from scratch.