Sir Ken McCallum has warned that threats from foreign adversaries have quadrupled over the past decade, describing Russia as the “number one aggressor” and highlighting a rise in Iran-linked aggression targeting Jewish sites and military bases.
In his annual speech in London, the head of MI5 said Russia was waging hybrid warfare while artificial intelligence was “supercharging the cyber security race between attackers and defenders.”
He also warned of growing threats from “extreme right-wing terrorism” and said MI5 had “intercepted terrorists seeking to exploit artificial intelligence,” including by integrating the technology with drones.
McCallum said the greatest danger posed by the misuse of AI came from extremist groups using the technology to exploit existing and emerging biological weapons.
However, he noted that counterterrorism operations and efforts to counter state threats were now operating on “almost the same scale,” describing this as a “major shift” in recent years.
