UK in ‘new era of national security’ as AI supercharges rising threats, security chief warns

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The United Kingdom has entered a new phase of national security as a “more contested era” replaces the stability of the post Cold War years, the head of the country’s domestic security service MI5 said Tuesday, delivering a bleak warning that a wide array of threats from states and terrorists could be supercharged by artificial intelligence.

Ken McCallum called on Britain to focus on resilience and vigilance in fending off hybrid threats directed by a triumvirate of hostile foreign states – Russia, Iran and China – as he warned the country is entering “a new era of national security.”

“These days our terrorism and state threats operational missions are pretty much of equal scale; that in itself is a huge shift across recent years,” he said in his annual speech outlining threats facing the UK.

Those threats are manifesting as “arson, sabotage, cyber-attacks, coercion (and) violence,” McCallum said.

AI is “already supercharging” some of these threats, especially in cybersecurity, McCallum said as he announced the creation of a new AI Threat Assessment Center. Most worryingly, the technology also has the potential to help make destructive bioweapons, though this has not yet been realized, he added.

McCallum said one concern was that “comparatively low sophistication actors may have a capability uplift in the AI era” if governments did not enact “guardrails” around the technology effectively.

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McCallum emphasized – echoing warnings from previous years – that the threat from states had continued to grow to eclipse the Cold War era. “You might be surprised to know that in 2026, MI5 is devoting more resource to countering state threats than during the Cold War,” he said. “Over the last decade, our state threats caseload has quadrupled.” He warned the new heightened threat environment was not a “temporary blip.”

Of these states, “Russia remains aggressor number one,” McCallum said, pointing to Moscow’s escalating campaign of “hybrid warfare” targeting European countries through means like a cyber attack on Polish energy infrastructure or an attempt to “use an explosive-laden drone to destroy a cargo plane in Germany.”

In the UK, “a man was charged last month under the National Security Act for allegedly preparing to sabotage a drone factory in Swindon,” McCallum added.

Still, these are not “the actions of a great power with the strategic upper hand,” McCallum said, noting that Russia’s capacity for espionage has been greatly weakened since more than 1,000 of its foreign staff have been expelled from their host countries since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Instead, Russia has scrambled “to pay criminals to do their bidding,” McCallum said.

Iran has used similar methods in an attempt to “expand their hybrid campaign,” he added. More than 50 people have been arrested in connection with Iran-linked plots, mostly directed against British Jewish communities, he said.

McCallum also referenced “Iranian ambitions to come at harder targets, like military sites,” alluding to the incident at RAF Fairford last month. He refused to provide further detail due to ongoing investigations but called the Fairford incident “not unique.”

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“There have been other examples, not just in the UK, but around the world,” he added.

Britain’s Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was “almost certainly” responsible for directing a suspected plot to target the UK airbase used by US forces. Several senior Iranian officials have vehemently denied these accusations. Several men, including a British-Iranian dual national, were arrested in connection with the plot before being released on bail.

Shortly after the incident, the US made the unusual decision to move all its long-range bombers stationed in the UK back to their home bases on American soil following an unspecified new threat.

McCallum also accused China of conducting espionage in the UK, referencing an alert MI5 issued to the academic community two weeks ago and a case earlier this year which yielded the “first ever convictions for national security offences” connected to Beijing.

While he emphasized the increasing role of states, he noted that terrorism “remains a top concern for MI5” and that an “attack is highly likely.”

乔纳森·布雷迪/法新社/PA Wire/盖蒂图片社

英国军情五处处长周二表示，随着“更具争议的时代”取代了冷战后时代的稳定，英国已进入国家安全的新阶段。他发出严峻警告，人工智能可能会加剧来自国家和恐怖分子的各种威胁。

肯·麦卡勒姆呼吁英国重视韧性和警惕性，以抵御由俄罗斯、伊朗和中国这三个敌对外国势力主导的混合威胁，并警告说英国正在进入“国家安全的新时代”。

“如今，我们打击恐怖主义和应对国家威胁的行动规模几乎相当；这本身就是近年来发生的巨大转变，”他在概述英国面临的威胁的年度演讲中说道。

麦卡勒姆说，这些威胁表现为“纵火、破坏、网络攻击、胁迫和暴力”。

麦卡勒姆在宣布成立新的人工智能威胁评估中心时表示，人工智能“已经加剧”了某些威胁，尤其是在网络安全领域。他还补充说，最令人担忧的是，这项技术还有可能被用于制造破坏性生物武器，尽管这种情况尚未发生。

麦卡勒姆表示，一个令人担忧的问题是，如果各国政府不有效地对这项技术实施“护栏”，那么“相对低水平的行动者在人工智能时代可能会获得能力提升”。

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麦卡勒姆强调——这与他往年的警告相呼应——来自国家的威胁持续增长，已经超过了冷战时期。“你或许会惊讶地发现，2026年，英国军情五处投入到应对国家威胁的资源比冷战时期还要多，”他说。“过去十年，我们处理的国家威胁案件数量翻了四倍。”他警告说，这种新出现的威胁形势并非“暂时的波动”。

麦卡勒姆指出，在这些国家中，“俄罗斯仍然是头号侵略者”，他指出莫斯科不断升级针对欧洲国家的“混合战争”行动，例如对波兰能源基础设施发动网络攻击，或试图“使用装满炸药的无人机摧毁德国的一架货机”。

麦卡勒姆补充说，在英国，“上个月，一名男子因涉嫌准备破坏斯温顿的一家无人机工厂而被控违反《国家安全法》。

麦卡勒姆指出，尽管如此，这些并非“一个拥有战略优势的大国所采取的行动”。他表示，自2022年莫斯科全面入侵乌克兰以来，俄罗斯已有超过1000名外籍员工被驱逐出境，其间谍能力已大大削弱。相反，俄罗斯却忙于“收买犯罪分子为他们效力”。

他还补充说，伊朗曾使用类似手段试图“扩大其混合行动”。他表示，已有50多人因与伊朗有关的阴谋而被捕，这些阴谋大多针对英国犹太社区。

麦卡勒姆还提到“伊朗的野心在于袭击更强大的目标，例如军事设施”，暗指上个月发生在费尔福德皇家空军基地的事件。他以调查仍在进行为由拒绝透露更多细节，但称费尔福德事件“并非个例”​​。

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“不仅在英国，世界各地都有类似的例子，”他补充道。

英国首相安迪·伯纳姆表示，伊朗伊斯兰革命卫队“几乎可以肯定”策划了一起针对美军使用的英国空军基地的袭击阴谋。多名伊朗高级官员强烈否认了这些指控。包括一名拥有英国和伊朗双重国籍的男子在内的数人因涉嫌参与该阴谋而被捕，后获准保释。

事件发生后不久，美国做出了一个不同寻常的决定，将所有驻扎在英国的远程轰炸机撤回美国本土基地，理由是存在不明的新威胁。

麦卡勒姆还指责中国在英国进行间谍活动，并提及两周前军情五处向学术界发出的警报，以及今年早些时候一起案件，该案件导致了“有史以来首次与北京有关的危害国家安全的罪行被定罪”。

他强调了国家日益增长的作用，同时指出恐怖主义“仍然是英国军情五处最关注的问题”，而且“极有可能发生袭击”。