UK Cyber Agency Warns AI-Powered Ransomware Is Likely by 2028

The UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has warned that AI-powered malware is "highly likely" to be part of a ransomware attack on Britain's critical national infrastructure between now and 2028. The warning came with its annual review and a separate assessment of how AI could change cyber threats over the next two years. The agency gave little detail on what this malware might look like, but suggested that open source AI security tools, originally built to help researchers, could be repurposed for harmful use.

That is already happening, according to the report. Researchers are seeing growing 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. In its pessimistic 2028 scenario, the NCSC expects a significant rise in the frequency and sophistication of attacks worldwide, with wider use of AI tools making it harder to identify who is responsible. It also describes a "realistic possibility" of an autonomous attacker that could self-replicate and conduct attacks beyond its human operator's control.

The NCSC also sees AI helping defenders. Project DROMOS began this year with a four-week pilot analysing government code repositories, then expanded into selected operational environments. The NCSC says it uncovered hundreds of potential security issues, including critical vulnerabilities. The agency also acknowledges that AI is already changing how vulnerabilities are found and patched.