Intelligence agencies warn that AI is months away from causing havoc

The ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence agencies of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the US have warned that powerful artificial intelligence models are ‘months away’ from wreaking havoc in cyber attacks.

In a rare joint statement the agencies call on leaders to “act now” as critical systems running old or unsupported software could be at risk of malicious AI attacks by bad actors.

“Frontier AI models are anticipated to exceed current industry expectations, fundamentally transforming both offensive and defensive cyber capabilities. The timeline is not years, it is months,” said the joint statement. “A whole-of-organisation and whole-of-society response is required. Cyber risk can no longer be treated as a purely technical issue. This is a core business risk and leadership responsibility.”

The warning comes after the Trump administration earlier this month decided to block “foreign nationals” from accessing Anthropic’s latest AI model, Fable. While no specific models are mentioned by name, Anthropic drew headlines earlier this year when it said that its most advanced model, Mythos, would not be released to the public over fears it could be misused.

Gary Barlet, from cyber security firm Illumio, told ‘The Independent’ newspaper: “AI is about to dramatically accelerate the speed, scale, and sophistication of cyberattacks, lowering barriers for adversaries and giving them capabilities that were once limited to highly skilled actors”.

He continued: “What worries me is that too many organisations still think they can patch their way out of this problem. We couldn't keep up before AI, and we certainly won't keep up after it. Attackers have always had the upper hand because they don't operate under the same constraints as defenders, and that's even more true in the age of AI.”