Are Russia, China, Iran planning to carry out large scale cyberattacks bigger than Europe supermarket fridges hacking? Top Britain official reveals shocking details

Britain's cybersecurity chief said has warned that the chain of cyberattacks on supermarket fridges across Europe was just the beginning as he alleged that Russia, China and Iran are capable of carrying attacks against the United Kingdom. In its annual report, Britain's National Cyber Security Centre said it was highly likely there would be a ransomware cyberattack involving AI-powered malware by 2028 on Britain's critical infrastructure.

Richard Horne, head of Britain's National Cyber Security Centre, said Russia was making sustained attempts to penetrate UK military networks, while Iran was carrying out malicious cyber operations globally, including against the UK.

It is known that China highly likely has the intent and is best positioned to use AI for operations against the UK's critical national infrastructure and other strategic targets with their activity representing the most sophisticated and sustained cyber challenge the UK faces, he said, Reuters reported.


Moscow, Beijing and Tehran have all repeatedly denied similar accusations of malevolent cyber actions in the past.

On Monday, fridges and freezers in supermarkets from Sweden to Belgium and France were hit by hacking attacks which exposed vulnerabilities in IT systems, leading to stores having to throw away large amounts of food.

Horne said the incident was "just the foothills, as it were".

The NCSC's annual report claimed that artificial intelligence is expected to enhance the capabilities of hackers in coming years. NCSC officials have said that in the case of the refrigerator attacks advanced AI probably would not have been needed, as the attacks targeted known vulnerabilities in old tech.

But Horne said AI will make it increasingly easy to find such old vulnerabilities, and exploit them on a huge scale. Too many organisations and supply chains in Britain had got away with "doing tech on the cheap" for decades, which had left them vulnerable, Horne said.

Earlier in October, Pentagon was ​treating the spate of mysterious freezer malfunctions that spoiled food at military bases across the United States in August as a suspected hack.

The US Department of the Army Criminal Investigation Division said its Cyber Field Office was involved in the investigation and that ​it was working with French law enforcement to better understand "the refrigeration outages in Europe."