The UK government released a batch of cybersecurity policy papers on Nov. 3, including an annual assessment from the National Cyber Security Centre stating it is 'highly likely' AI-powered malware will be used in a ransomware attack on UK critical national infrastructure by 2028. The NCSC also said nation-states including China and Russia will likely routinely use AI-driven cyber tools to pursue geopolitical goals in the UK. The announcements followed last week's Autumn Budget 2026, which allocated nearly £200 billion toward AI-driven government cybersecurity projects.
darkreading.com
· 2026-11-06
A cyberattack disabled internet-connected refrigeration systems at grocery chains across Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Finland and Estonia on Monday, raising fridge temperatures as high as 50°C and ruining food. One Delhaize store in Belgium estimated losses at €100,000, and the incident follows a similar attack on French grocers in mid-October that caused tens of millions of euros in damage. No one has claimed responsibility, and Danfoss, which supplied refrigeration controllers in several affected stores, had been flagged by security researchers at Claroty two months earlier for vulnerabilities in its systems.
techspot.com
· 2026-11-03
Black Lotus Labs, Lumen's threat research arm, says it has spent three years tracking a rotating-relay framework it calls Silent Train, used by Chinese state-linked group Volt Typhoon. The group reportedly exploited at least four zero-day vulnerabilities in edge and management infrastructure, routing attacks through overseas VPS servers and chains of hijacked devices like routers to mask their origin before cleaning up after each operation.
bleepingcomputer.com
· 2026-10-28
CISA, the FBI, the US Secret Service, and law enforcement agencies in Germany and the UK issued a joint advisory stating the SafePay ransomware gang has compromised more than 600 critical infrastructure organizations across North America, South America, Europe and Australia since August 2024. The agencies said SafePay actors gain access through credential theft, brute-force attacks, and VPN exploitation, particularly targeting Mullvad VPN IP addresses, and often delete shadow copies and reset network-attached storage to hinder recovery.
bleepingcomputer.com
· 2026-10-21
According to Axios, leadership at major AI labs including OpenAI and Anthropic are privately running scenario-planning exercises for a catastrophic incident in which an AI system disrupts critical infrastructure such as finance, telecom, or utilities. OpenAI confirmed it conducts such preparedness exercises but said the scenarios are not treated as inevitable. Anthropic has separately listed existential risk to humanity as a factor in its IPO prospectus.
tomshardware.com
· 2026-10-10
The FBI and Justice Department announced the seizure and disabling of two hacking tools, 'Microscan' and 'FishHub,' used by the group known as Flax Typhoon to scan networks and conduct phishing attacks. Targets reportedly included a U.S. power company, airports in Japan and Poland, Taiwanese universities, an international NGO, and Taiwanese infrastructure firms. Officials say the operation was run by China-based Integrity Technology Group, which the FBI identifies as the actual entity behind Flax Typhoon.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-10-09
In her new book Better Tech: Putting People First in Cyberspace, computer scientist Francine Berman argues that digital technologies like search engines and social media should be regulated with the same seriousness as roads, power grids and financial systems. She contends search engines crossed the threshold into critical infrastructure once online search became the primary way people find information and make decisions.
nature.com
· 2026-09-29
Recorded Future's Insikt Group reports that Russia is combining influence operations, cyberattacks, and physical incursions across Europe as part of its broader war effort against Ukraine. Examples cited include the CopyCop network impersonating European news outlets with AI-generated content, drone incursions near Estonia's border, and a Russian drone intercepted near Romania's Neptun Deep gas project in the Black Sea.
darkreading.com
· 2026-09-25
Security researchers including Joshua Corman of the Institute for Security and Technology say the immediate danger to energy infrastructure comes from malicious humans using generative AI tools, not from AI systems acting autonomously. They note that much of the grid's equipment, including power plants often decades old, was never built with internet connectivity or cyber defense in mind, leaving it exposed as attackers gain more powerful tools.
theverge.com
· 2026-09-20
Since the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline explosions and other attacks on subsea infrastructure near Taiwan and the Arctic, governments and companies have sharply increased investment in technology to protect underwater cables and pipelines. Chatham House researcher Katja Bego says advances in AI, drones and autonomous vehicles are enabling new forms of seabed surveillance, reversing decades of neglect since the Cold War. Over 1.5 million kilometers of submarine communications cables now underpin the global economy, making their protection a growing strategic priority.
cnbc.com
· 2026-09-19
A new analysis argues that digital infrastructure—search engines, cloud platforms, and networks people rely on daily—should be designed, built, and maintained with the same rigor applied to physical infrastructure like water systems and power grids. It draws comparisons to failures such as Flint's water crisis and Puerto Rico's electrical grid collapse to illustrate what happens when essential systems are neglected.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-09-07
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