Pat McFadden, the UK Secretary of State for Lancaster, will issue a warning at the NATO meeting in London on Monday: countries hostile to the UK, such as Russia, are attempting to enhance their cyber attack capabilities against UK infrastructure using artificial intelligence.
To address this emerging threat, the UK government will invest £8.2 million to establish an Artificial Intelligence Security Research Lab (LASR) in London in collaboration with the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and other agencies. This lab will focus on researching how to defend against advanced cyber attacks that may target critical infrastructure like the power grid.
Image Source Note: Image generated by AI, image licensed from Midjourney
McFadden pointed out that the UK is currently engaged in a "daily cyber war," with attacks from Russia being particularly prominent. Over the past year, Russian hacker groups have significantly increased their attacks on the UK while also targeting other NATO allies that support Ukraine.
Last week, Russian President Putin directly threatened several countries, including the UK, stating that Russia has the "right" to take military retaliation against nations allowing Ukraine to use Storm Shadow missiles to strike targets within Russia. Although experts believe that Russia is unlikely to launch conventional military strikes against NATO member states, AI-enhanced cyber attacks still pose a real threat.
According to McFadden, Russia has already targeted UK media, telecommunications, democratic political institutions, and energy infrastructure. Through cyber attacks, Russia could theoretically cut off electricity supplies to millions and shut down power grid systems. This threat is not unfounded; Russian hackers successfully infiltrated Ukraine's regional power grids in 2015 and 2016, causing temporary blackouts.
Even more concerning, US intelligence reports indicate that North Korea has begun applying artificial intelligence to develop more destructive hacking tools. McFadden believes that North Korea is just the first country to do this, and more countries may follow suit in the future.
To this end, the newly established LASR lab will collaborate with the private sector to jointly address these new cybersecurity threats. This initiative reflects the UK government's high regard for the threat posed by AI-driven cyber attacks and its proactive approach to protecting critical infrastructure.