AI could lower barriers to attacks on critical infrastructure

Cybersecurity experts say AI does not yet turn inexperienced hackers into nation-state level attackers, but it could make attacks on critical infrastructure easier and faster. The concern is that attackers may need less specialist knowledge to investigate utilities and industrial systems, increasing the number of potential threats and compressing the time defenders have to respond.

A Frenos report tested AI models on 16,980 tasks between October 2025 and September 2026, including decisions, attack planning and simulated attacks. Depending on the model, 6 to 47 per cent of individual choices met the required outcome; the three strongest frontier models produced workable plans in about 90 per cent of planning attempts, though their performance in simulated attacks was inconsistent. Experts said AI can also help skilled security researchers build tools in days that might previously have taken months.