The UK is in a “new AI arms race” with international locations like Russia and North Korea, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will say on Monday.
Minister Pat McFadden shall be talking on the NATO Cyber Defence Convention at Lancaster Home, warning the UK and its allies that “cyber war is now a daily reality”.
“Be in no doubt: the United Kingdom and others in this room are watching Russia. We know exactly what they are doing, and we are countering their attacks both publicly and behind the scenes,” he’ll say.
“Putin is a man who wants destruction, not peace.”
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Pat McFadden. Pic: AP
In a bid to maintain up with adversaries, Mr McFadden will announce a brand new Laboratory for AI Safety Analysis (LASR).
“AI is already revolutionising many parts of life – including national security,” he’ll say.
“But as we develop this technology, there’s a danger it could be weaponised against us. Because our adversaries are also looking at how to use AI on the physical and cyber battlefield.”
Chinese language threats
US officers just lately found a Chinese language assault on the nation’s telecommunications infrastructure, the place operatives “extracted all sorts of sensitive information from US telecommunications and penetrated it very deeply”, in keeping with tech investor Andrew Levi.
In Could, GCHQ director Anne Keast-Butler mentioned the intelligence company now “devotes more resource to China than any other single mission”, after the nation hacked the Ministry of Defence’s payroll system and was accused of stealing information about UK voters from the Electoral Fee.
In latest months, cyber safety agency Test Level mentioned it had seen “an uptick of 72% in cyber attacks on targets in the UK”, in keeping with Sergey Shykevitch, who leads the corporate’s menace intelligence analysis.
AI ‘just one a part of the puzzle’
The brand new AI laboratory will obtain an preliminary £8.22m spherical of presidency funding earlier than inviting additional funding and collaboration from business.
“We need to fundamentally change our posture and invest in our networks,” mentioned Stephen Kines, chief government of British cyber safety agency Goldilock.
He mentioned the UK’s “legacy infrastructure” leaves the nation susceptible and including AI safety on high is like having a “nice front door” with a safety digital camera doorbell however an “old-school back door”.
“That’s really the problem we have. We’ve got these back doors that just have no security whatsoever,” he mentioned.
Mr Kines suggests the UK could be higher off implementing bodily “kill switches” in its grids with a purpose to defend in opposition to Russian assaults, in addition to decreasing what number of entry factors are related to the web.
“If you take it down to the physical layer, then you can actually defeat the Russians because they can’t physically penetrate it from thousands of miles away.”
Alongside the brand new laboratory, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will even announce a brand new £1m incident response venture to share experience in order that allies can reply to cyber incidents extra successfully.
