Britain should be prepared for an AI-powered cyberattack on its critical national infrastructure within the next two years, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said on Tuesday, 3 November 2026, in its annual report.
The report said it was highly likely that a ransomware attack involving AI-powered malware would hit the nation’s critical infrastructure by 2028. It also warned that hostile actors’ use of AI would increase the scale and efficiency of their operations.
Richard Horne, chief executive of the NCSC, which is part of the GCHQ spy agency, said far too many organisations and supply chains had got away with “doing tech on the cheap” for decades, leaving them vulnerable.
He said the coming rise in cyber incidents was not because AI had invented new ways to attack, but because weaknesses tolerated for too long could now be found and exploited at a scale once unimaginable.
Horne was due to say that China highly likely has the intent and is best positioned to use AI for operations against critical national infrastructure and other strategic targets, describing its activity as the most sophisticated and sustained cyber challenge the UK faces.
He was also due to say that Russia was making sustained attempts to penetrate UK military networks, while Iran was carrying out malicious cyber operations globally. Moscow, Beijing and Tehran have all repeatedly denied similar accusations in the past.
The report and speech came after hacking attacks on supermarkets across Europe exposed vulnerabilities in IT systems. Horne urged organisations to take urgent action now, warning they would otherwise have to explain why, “when food isn’t on shelves, lights aren’t on, businesses have gone under”, they saw the warning signs and still did not make the right choices.
Source: Reuters, via BusinessWorld. The image is illustrative only, not a photo of the actual events.
