Latest news with #cyberwarfare
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
New UK weapons factories to be built 'very soon', defence secretary reveals
New weapons factories will be built "very soon" to show Vladimir Putin the UK is "stepping up our deterrents", the defence secretary has told Sky News. Last night, the government announced as part of a £6bn push to rearm at a time of growing threats. Politics latest: Healey questioned by Trevor Phillips No details on timings or where the factories would be were provided ahead of the strategic defence review, which the £6bn investment will be part of, being published on Monday. But Defence Secretary John Healey told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: "We should expect to see new factories opening very soon. "And we've already got strong munitions factories in every part of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. "The investment we're making will boost the jobs in those areas as well." Asked whether Russian President Vladimir Putin should be "frightened now" or in the future, Mr Healey said: "The message to Putin is we take our defence seriously, we're stepping up our deterrents." Mr Healey also said he has "no doubt" of GDP in the next parliament. He defended not trying to get to that in this parliament - by 2029 - and said: "It's how much [is spent on defence], but also how you spend it." The defence secretary said his government is showing a sense of urgency by investing £1bn into cyber warfare capabilities, £1.5bn to improve forces' housing over the next five years and a £6bn commitment to "rearm" over the next five years. Read more:Prison officers should have lethal weapons, Tories sayStarmer says govt will 'look at' scrapping two child limit Senior Conservative Robert Jenrick told Trevor Phillips he welcomed "any extra investment in defence" and the fact Labour had reaffirmed the UK's commitment to spending 2.5% of GDP on defence. However, he said: "We want to see the UK reach 3% within this parliament, we think that 2034 is a long time to wait, given the gravity of the situation." He called Mr Healey "a good man" who is "doing what needs to be done in the national interest". But he added: "I am sceptical as to whether Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is going to make good on these promises. "Since the general election, all I can see are broken promises from Rachel Reeves."
Forbes
2 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Will AI Replace Cybersecurity? Not Quite—But It's Rewriting The Rules
The Real Battle Is Now AI vs. AI Put yourself in the mind of a master cybercriminal. Fun, right? Stay with me. I promise this role play exercise will pay off. Just a few years ago, your illicit schemes were small time. You were content to steal unwitting individuals' personal data, including credit card and social security numbers to buy merchandise on the Dark Web. Your petty exploits paid off—modestly but steadily. But it was a volume game. You had to keep finding more unsuspecting marks to exploit and more creative ways to turn a profit. Then came AI. You quickly learned all about ChatGPT and other forms of generative artificial intelligence. As you did, you thought: why not use this tech to level up—crime-wise? Armed with new tools you evolved from a petty thief. You developed a budding criminal empire capable of exploiting not just singular victims, but enterprise corporations with billion-dollar balance sheets. After all, that's where the real dough is, right? Welcome to the new age of cyberwarfare—courtesy of AI. 'The stakes have never been higher,' says Ed Vasko, COO of High Wire Networks, a leading global provider of managed cybersecurity services. A seasoned veteran with 33 years' experience, we sat down to discuss the elephant in the room. 'The cyber war has shifted. It no longer wages between hackers and IT departments. It's now AI versus AI.' Vasko is not alone in this assessment. Speaking at DefenseScoop's Google Defense Forum Pentagon last year, military insider Jude Sunderbruch of the Defense Department's Cyber Crime Center warned attendees of future 'AI versus AI conflicts' spreading all the way to the international stage. ''I think we're really just at the start,' Sunderbruch said, later adding that the U.S. and its allies will have to get creative and learn how to best use existing AI systems to gain a leg up on competing intelligence giants like China,' according to Defense One. The implications go beyond boardrooms and command centers. To appreciate what may be coming, Vasko paints a chilling scenario for the not-so-distant future. Time for more role playing. Now imagine you're the head of a major retailer. For the last few years you've relied on AI supply chain forecasting. Similar to how fintech increasingly depends on AI—not humans—to handle the complexities of trading, artificial intelligence is core to your business' operations. Without it, you're flying blind. This reality makes things all the more disturbing when the AI supporting your organization begins behaving erratically, wreaking havoc. Orders stop arriving. Inventory goes out of stock. Even your pricing models collapse. These internal problems don't stay contained for long. They proliferate externally—in dire ways. Once loyal customers defect. Revenues drop up. And your stock price plummets. But that's not all… According to Vasko, cyber criminals behind this type of villainy may be thought of as AI buccaneers—digital pirates often paid to instigate corporate espionage and theft. 'Unlike the antiquated variety from centuries past, AI buccaneers know the power of perception—that it's possible to tank a rival company's stock price by spreading lies to disrupt public sentiment.' To this end, the hits keep on coming for your major retailer company. A video surfaces of your CFO making disturbing comments in a shareholder meeting. The remarks are so inflammatory they go viral, driving your already plummeting stock even lower. But here's the thing. That CFO video is actually a deepfake. It was produced by Google's Veo 3, similar to extant bogus news anchor content already proliferating the Internet. True or not, the damage is done. Within hours, your unscrupulous corporate rivals bask in ignoble victory. Short selling your plunging stock, they make out like bandits—along with their AI buccaneer accomplices, benefitting from your demise. As Vasko explains, 'Cyber criminals can even now use AI co-pilots to coordinate attacks on corporations, industries, even governments. They're faster, smarter, and more dangerous than anything we've seen before.' More on that below. AI co-pilots are but one part of a growing criminal toolkit, capable of automating surveillance, coordinating attacks, and orchestrating malfeasance at scale. What's now possible almost defies belief. Example: AI can analyze thousands of profiles across social media, company directories, and public databases to identify weak links for exploitation. 'Once inside, these same AI tools can poison an organization's internal data lakes—sabotaging predictive systems and decision-making engines from the inside out,' explains Vasko. This means bad actors needn't limit themselves to stealing personal data. They can expand their scope of attack, going so far as to manipulate market outcomes. Per the above cautionary tale, they can influence how a company performs, how it's perceived, and ultimately, what happens to it long-term. Hundreds of years ago, back when pirates plundered by sea, countries ravaged by buccaneers authorized so-called privateers to fight off the bad guys. Unfortunately, the U.S. government doesn't allow proactive 'hacking back' in the form of AI privateers. Not even in self-defense. This is why High Wire Networks and other cybersecurity firms avoid going on the offensive. Instead, they turn to AI-augmented defense platforms to preemptively determine and intercept threats, shifting reactive security into a proactive shield. In other words, they're fighting AI with AI. 'Hyperautomation' is the term Vasko uses to describe the fusion of machine learning and automated decision-making throughout a security stack. In the old model, a cyber victim might be notified of a data breach. 'Dear so and so,' an email might read. 'We regret to inform you that your credit card was compromised.' That's not so helpful, is it? Hyperautomation, on the other hand, reacts proactively. Here's how it could work with the above individual scenario. Alerted of a breach, AI could stop it, issue a new credit card, and continually monitor a victim's credit card and exposure. Many cybersecurity firms employ similar tech at the organizational level. As Cyber Magazine reports, Varonis leverages artificial intelligence to act autonomously as a counterweight to AI-enabled mischief. The company's 'AI Shield' offers real-time ongoing protection for large organizations. 'By integrating real-time risk analysis, automated risk remediation, behavior-based threat detection, and 24/7 alert response, Varonis' AI Shield empowers enterprises to safely use AI technologies while safeguarding sensitive data.' Looking forward, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Once upon a time, swashbuckling pirates patrolled the high seas, pilfering valuables from individuals, companies, and governments alike. Nowadays, that threat has migrated from the physical theatre to cyberspace as criminals wield code to rob and steal at will. To survive, much less thrive, tomorrow's organizations would do well to wrest back the power of AI. Without it? We're surely sunk.
Telegraph
3 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Britain's building a £1bn ‘army of hackers' – but they have already been outpaced by Russia
'The keyboard has become a weapon of war,' Defence Secretary John Healey announced at MoD Corsham, the UK's military cyber HQ, on Wednesday. Britain's digital defences are facing daily attacks from hostile states, he warned, and the time has come to fight back with a £1 billion injection to fund new artificial intelligence capabilities and an army of hackers. Yet while the money is certainly a welcome boost, the language used has raised a few eyebrows. It's 'talking about cyber operations as if they're new,' scoffed Matthew Savill, director of military science at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) on the BBC's Today programme on Wednesday. 'It's been 15 years since Stuxnet.' Savill, who it's fair to say has the inside scoop after several years as a senior civil servant in the Ministry of Defence (MoD), was referring to the highly sophisticated computer virus discovered in 2010 that had been used to sabotage Iran's nuclear facilities, widely attributed to a joint operation between the US and Israel. It was a watershed moment in cyber warfare – proving how nation states could now cause vast damage from behind a computer screen, without a shot being fired. Not only that, but it also revealed – to the concern of many – the impressive cyber operations several countries now had in their locker. Indeed, the US had made dominance in cyber a strategic goal as far back as the mid-1990s. China and Russia had quickly followed in the early 2000s, with Moscow investing heavily in technology to boost its intelligence units and Beijing openly integrating 'information warfare' into its military strategy. Britain, however, was slower off the mark. Despite first being hit by state-sponsored cyber espionage in 2003, when malware designed to steal sensitive data was found on a government employee's device, it wasn't until 2010 that the National Security Strategy officially ranked cyber attacks as a 'Tier 1' threat – on par with terrorism. Some 15 years on, as Savill told the BBC's Jonny Dymond, defence chiefs appear yet again to be 'catching up'. Government systems outpaced by cyber criminals The danger this lack of action and investment has put the UK in was laid bare earlier this month in a report by the House of Commons' Public Accounts Committee (PAC). Crumbling Government computer systems have been outpaced by cyber criminals, MPs warned, with more than a quarter of all public sector IT systems using vulnerable, older 'legacy' technology. Britain's critical infrastructure has already felt the impact of these weaknesses – from the devastating WannaCry ransomware attack on the NHS in 2017 to the recent hits experienced by retailers such as Marks & Spencer, the Co-op and Harrods. Each attack only reaffirms the need to improve resilience. Indeed, the UK Government is in no doubt of the need for – and effectiveness of – a world-leading cyber operation. Just keeping at bay the 90,000 cyber attacks the country has faced from hostile states in the past two years is difficult enough (double the previous number in the same time period up to 2023), less actually going on the offensive. 'One of the reasons you might be seeing a pivot to spending more money on cyber in our armed forces, rather than bombs and bullets, is because it can level the playing field,' says Prof Alan Woodward, cybersecurity expert from the University of Surrey. 'It acts as a force multiplier. 'Smaller countries can get a bigger bang for their buck – there's no longer as much need for an overwhelming physical superiority over the enemy, you can instead just turn off their lights and gas. We are a much smaller military nation than we once were – the armed forces can't even fill Wembley Stadium. So cyber is a way of punching above our weight. 'If you spend the money wisely and you can develop the capability, then there is the possibility you can be ready for some of the threats in what is an increasingly volatile world. It's what allowed Ukraine to make a damn good fist of fighting what on paper should be an overwhelming physical force from Russia.' Why Britain is still behind The UK's armed forces and intelligence agencies do in fact possess significant cyber expertise – Britain's GCHQ being the jewel in its crown, helped by its close allegiance with its counterpart in the US, the National Security Agency. Its offensive cyber unit once conducted a hugely successful cyber campaign against Islamic State in 2017 that made it 'almost impossible' for the terror group to 'spread their hate online, to use their normal channels to spread their rhetoric, or trust their publications,' according to Jeremy Fleming, then-head of GCHQ. A major problem, however, lies in its size. The scale of its cyber teams is modest – numbering in the low thousands – and often relying on contractors or partner support for advanced operations. In contrast, adversaries like China or Russia deploy vast numbers of keyboard warriors. This was spelt out in the recent PAC report, which warned of a shortage of cyber skills experts, particularly in the public sector. Woodward points to two main reasons behind this: firstly, the lack of students opting to study engineering, and secondly, the poor pay on offer for those who opt for the civil service. In China, between 30 to 40 per cent of graduates have a STEM (science, technology, engineering or mathematics) qualification – compared to around 5 per cent 'if you're lucky' in the UK, he says. 'They're hard, complicated subjects and people don't want to do them, even though if you do computer science your chances of getting a job are practically guaranteed, and you'll be earning one of the highest salaries.' Yet the big-money jobs are generally only available in the private sector – where the pay on offer can often be nearly twice as much as their public sector counterparts. 'How do you compete against banks and people like that paying large salaries?' says Woodward. In contrast, other nation states like China are going 'hell for leather' in attracting the best talent to the military and government agencies. Industry insiders have certainly noted the skills shortage. 'Police, security services and government departments need to recruit and accelerate cyber skills and capabilities to stay one step ahead of the bad actors,' says Ed Dolman, head of Europe, Middle East, and Africa at digital forensics firm Cellebrite, which provides the MoD and other government agencies with the technology to carry out cyber investigations. 'Britain cannot afford to play catch up any more and sleepwalk into this increasingly dangerous world. 'Growing volumes of increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks perpetuated by rogue states and organised criminal groups mean that ramping up the UK's security capabilities should be at the very top of the Government agenda.' A £1bn boost to UK cyber defences The Government has at least been looking to bolster its defences with cyber personnel. In 2020, the Government established a specialist unit called the National Cyber Force to carry out the UK's offensive cyber activity to protect the UK. Its aim is to reach 3,000 cyber experts by the end of the decade. To give a sense of scale of the fight Britain is up against however, estimates for China's own 'hacker army' range between 50,000 to 100,000. The latest £1 billion injection to the UK's cyber defences will fund a new Cyber and Electromagnetic Command, which will upgrade targeting systems using an artificial intelligence 'kill web' that connects military systems. Experts suggest it hints that the UK may start to go on the offensive with its cyber operations, similar to its allies and enemies. 'The UK has been very cagey about talking about its offensive cyber capability,' Savill told the BBC. 'It's only a very slight cracking open of what remains a pretty secretive world. But it sounds like they want to talk a little bit more about their ability to take on hostile states.' Woodward suggests the UK may in fact have far more capability than has been publicly acknowledged. 'The UK has definitely been building its offensive cyber capabilities,' he says. 'Indeed, just because we haven't yet used it, doesn't mean we don't have the technology. It's a bit like saying: 'I've got a nuclear weapon, you've got a nuclear weapon, but I'm behind because I've never used it.'' Instead, unlike Moscow, the UK has to be far more careful – and often it's better not to show your hand until you need to, he says. 'Moscow has been far more aggressive and brazen about it. They like the disruption. Putin's regime is very happy to play fast and loose with these things and takes a lot more risk than the British government is willing to. 'We would never admit to it [offensive cyber operations], because if we did it would be an act of war.' An 'ethical dilemma' For several years, Russia has carried out cyberattacks on Western critical infrastructure through criminal groups – allowing them to deny any involvement. Yet on the battlefield, particularly in Ukraine, they have been far more gung-ho with trying out autonomous AI weapons, such as drones that can recognise targets and fire. In its fight for survival, Ukraine has also tried such technology out. For the UK however, this presents an 'ethical dilemma'. 'Britain finds it hard enough with driverless cars,' jokes Woodward. Neither can it use criminal groups as a proxy for its dirty work. Yet, he suggests the UK has already carried out extensive digital espionage and may well be ready to unleash its own cyber weapons in the near future. 'If you're going for real disruption, like taking energy grids down, you don't want to play your hand,' he says, suggesting that it may have already started the process. Stuxnet, for example, was only discovered years after it had been lying in place. 'We may have already planted the seeds in various places. But actually triggering them is a different proposition – you don't want to use it until you really have to.' So while it might seem like we're late to the party, Woodward believes we may in fact be better prepared than some fear. 'It's not a sudden revolution in thinking, it's an evolution,' he says. 'I just think it's accelerated.'
Russia Today
3 days ago
- Politics
- Russia Today
UK to step up cyberattacks on Russia and China
London will significantly step up offensive cyber operations against Russia and China, UK Defense Secretary John Healey announced on Thursday following the inauguration of the country's new Cyber and Electromagnetic Command. In a statement quoted by The Times, Healey claimed that 'the keyboard is now a weapon of war' and said the UK's new cyber command would coordinate both defensive and offensive operations, including hacking into enemy systems to disrupt attacks and spread of propaganda. Asked whether this would include Russia and China, Healey responded: 'Yes.' Healey's statement marks the first time a British minister has explicitly confirmed cyberattacks on other states. While UK ministers had previously confirmed cyber operations against non-state actors like Islamic State, they have not until now acknowledged attacks against other countries. The defense secretary added that more than £1 billion ($1.35 billion) has been allocated by the UK government for a 'digital targeting web' to enable real-time battlefield intelligence-sharing between troops, spy planes and satellites. Healey's comments come ahead of the publication of a strategic defense review on Monday. According to The Times, the review will stress that cyberattacks on Britain, allegedly being carried out by Russia and China, are 'threatening the foundations of the economy and daily life.' Both Moscow and Beijing have consistently denied accusations of carrying out cyberattacks against Western nations, characterizing the claims as baseless and politically motivated. Additionally, Russian officials have in recent months repeatedly raised concerns over what they describe as Western Europe's continued militarization and aggressive anti-Russian rhetoric, said to be in response to the alleged threat posed by Moscow. The Kremlin has vehemently denied having any hostile intent towards any western country, and has accused European politicians of 'irresponsibly stoking fears' to justify increased military expenditures, which Moscow had labeled an 'incitement of war on the European continent.'
The Independent
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
New command will counter ‘continual and intensifying' cyber warfare, says Healey
The Government will set up a cyber command to counter a 'continual and intensifying' level of cyber warfare as part of the strategic defence review, the Defence Secretary has announced. It will also invest more than £1 billion into a new 'digital targeting web' to be set up by 2027 to better connect weapons systems and allow battlefield decisions targeting enemy threats to be made and executed faster. It could identify a threat using a sensor on a ship or in space and then disable it using an F-35 aircraft, drone, or offensive cyber operation, the Ministry of Defence said. The cyber and electromagnetic command will be led by General Sir Jim Hockenhull to defend against cyber attacks and co-ordinate offensive moves with the national cyber force. Defence Secretary John Healey said that the Government is responding after some 90,000 cyber attacks from state-linked sources were directed at the UK's defence over the last two years. 'Certainly the intensity of the cyber attacks that we're seeing from Russia stepped up, and cyber is now the leading edge, not just of defence, but of contests and tension between countries,' he told reporters during a visit to MOD Corsham. He said there is a 'level of cyber warfare that is continual and intensifying' that requires the UK to step up its capacity to defend against it. The command will also work on electromagnetic warfare – for example, through degrading command and control, jamming signals to drones or missiles and intercepting an adversary's communications.
