The Five Eyes intelligence alliance has warned that rapidly advancing AI systems could enable devastating cyber attacks within months unless organisations urgently strengthen their defences.
Advanced artificial intelligence systems could be just months away from enabling catastrophic cyber attacks against businesses and governments, according to a stark warning from the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.
The alliance, which comprises intelligence agencies from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US, said organisations relying on outdated and unsupported software face growing risks as AI tools become increasingly capable.
In a joint statement released on Monday (22.06.26), the agencies warned that leaders must take urgent action to prepare for a new generation of cyber threats.
The statement said: “Frontier AI models are anticipated to exceed current industry expectations, fundamentally transforming both offensive and defensive cyber capabilities. The timeline is not years, it is months.
“A whole-of-organisation and whole-of-society response is required. Cyber risk can no longer be treated as a purely technical issue. This is a core business risk and leadership responsibility.”
The intelligence agencies said AI is rapidly lowering the barriers to sophisticated cyber attacks, allowing malicious actors to operate with capabilities that were previously available only to highly skilled specialists.
They urged governments and businesses to integrate AI into their own security operations to strengthen defences against increasingly advanced threats.
The warning comes amid growing concerns about the cyber capabilities of the latest AI models.
Although the Five Eyes statement did not identify specific systems, some of the strongest concerns have recently focused on advanced models developed by Anthropic.
Earlier this month, the AI company was forced to suspend access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models after restrictions imposed by the US government over security concerns.
Cybersecurity experts say organisations can no longer rely on traditional approaches to protecting networks and systems.
Gary Barlet, public sector chief technology officer at cybersecurity company Illumio, said: “AI is about to dramatically accelerate the speed, scale, and sophistication of cyberattacks, lowering barriers for adversaries and giving them capabilities that were once limited to highly skilled actors.”
He warned that many organisations remain overly dependent on software patching as their primary defence.
Barlet added: “What worries me is that too many organisations still think they can patch their way out of this problem. We couldn’t keep up before AI, and we certainly won’t keep up after it.
“Attackers have always had the upper hand because they don’t operate under the same constraints as defenders, and that’s even more true in the age of AI. It’s time for organisations to stop treating a breach as a possibility and start treating it as an inevitability.”
Advanced AI ‘months’ away from causing catastrophic cyber attacks
