Britain on notice: AI-powered ransomware attacks to arrive by 2028

Cyber agency warns critical infrastructure is a likely target as chief urges bosses to stop doing 'tech on the cheap'

The UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) says AI-powered malware is "highly likely" to be a part of a future ransomware attack on Britain's critical national infrastructure between now and 2028.

The warning accompanies its annual review and a separate assessment exploring how AI could change cyber threats over the next two years.

The cyber arm of signals intelligence agency GCHQ did not provide much detail about what form this AI malware may take. However, it alluded to open source AI security tools that were initially intended to assist security researchers being repurposed for nefarious activity.

REG AD

Attackers are already repurposing such tools. For example, researchers are increasingly seeing widespread abuse of ARTEX, an open source, Chinese-made AI red-teaming platform, in attacks on UK registrar 123 Reg, Microsoft 365, and others since its launch in July.

REG AD

In its pessimistic scenario for 2028, the NCSC envisages "a significant increase in the frequency and sophistication of cyberattacks worldwide," with wider adoption of AI tools making attribution harder.

China "has likely played a role" in supplying those tools in this future, "enabling them to hide their activities within the noise," the report states.

It also considers a further threat: an autonomous attacker operating beyond its human operator's control.

The NCSC says it "is a realistic possibility such an entity could self-replicate and conduct cyberattacks at will, with no apparent motivation or restraint."

Such attacks would likely complicate geopolitical relationships, owing again to attribution difficulties, making it easier for countries that order attacks on others to deny their involvement.

The UK's plans for AI defense

At a time when each Patch Tuesday seems to come loaded with record numbers of bugs, the NCSC acknowledges that AI is already changing vulnerability discovery and patching.

The body is also exploring how AI could help defenders keep pace. Project DROMOS began earlier this year with a four-week pilot analyzing government code repositories, before expanding into selected operational environments.

REG AD

The Government Cyber Coordination Centre (GC3) launched the project with the AI Security Institute and other departments. The NCSC says it uncovered hundreds of potential security issues, including critical vulnerabilities.

The review also reaffirms plans for Cyber Shield, an agentic cyber defense system first teased in July.

Cyber Shield is expected to be delivered in stages over the next five years. It will involve the NCSC providing defensive agents deployed by participating organizations with data that will strengthen national resilience to ongoing cyber threats.

The NCSC will be running the scheme alongside the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), but acknowledged that this kind of automated defensive activity currently sits outside many organizations' risk tolerances, meaning it has a role to play in building trust in the system before adoption can go mainstream.

As reported last week, the government has set aside £60 million to fund the initiative, and an additional £70 million to support a new National Exposure and Real-Time Vulnerability (NERV) Centre.

The NERV Centre's job will be to identify and maintain an ongoing understanding of vulnerabilities across CNI organizations and the wider economy.

Per last week's budget, £40 million will fund a National Agentic Security Unit responsible for responding to uncontrolled bots and other agentic mishaps, and £24 million was assigned to strengthen public sector defenses.

An undisclosed sum will also help establish a new NCSC-managed AI Cyber Security Centre in Manchester to develop AI security expertise across government.

REG AD

In the meantime, NCSC CEO Dr Richard Horne is calling for organizations to "invest with urgency" in their security and resilience.

"For decades, we have collectively got away with doing tech on the cheap," he said today, announcing the annual report.

"We can be a nation where leaders of all organizations actively choose to invest with urgency... And where all organizations make security and resilience a fundamental requirement, not an afterthought.

"The collective result would be a source of enduring national strength for us all."

Horne said organizations should treat the NCSC's Cyber Essentials certification as the starting point, but scale up resilience efforts in line with organizational size, complexity, and risk.

The government also announced a 75 percent discount on Cyber Essentials certification for micro, small, and medium-sized businesses applying for their first certificate. ®