AI-Driven Cyber Threats: Understanding the Now - and Preparing for 2027

Avella, September 2025

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has issued a clear warning: artificial intelligence is already transforming the cyber threat landscape - and the impact is being felt today, not just in the years ahead. 

In its latest report, Impact of AI on the Cyber Threat: Now to 2027, the NCSC highlights how adversaries are adopting AI to lower barriers, increase attack speed, and amplify disruption. For security leaders, the message is simple: resilience must evolve in step with the threat. 

Five Key Shifts to Watch 

1. A lower skill threshold - Generative tools are making sophisticated phishing and reconnaissance accessible to less-skilled attackers. 

2. Ransomware acceleration - AI is enhancing victim profiling, negotiation scripting, and extortion campaigns. 

3. Shrinking patch windows - AI-driven vulnerability discovery is reducing the time between disclosure and exploitation. 

4. The digital divide - Organisations slow to adapt risk widening resilience gaps across supply chains and critical infrastructure. 

5. Rising attack volumes - The NCSC has already seen a steep increase in AI-enabled activity, including a threefold rise in severe incidents - nearly 2,000 cyber-attack reports in 2024. 

A Roadmap for Resilience 

The NCSC sets out a 24-month plan to help organisations keep pace: 

Adopt AI-aware defences - from phishing detection to anomaly-based monitoring. 

Strengthen the human layer - through dynamic, AI-informed training and rehearsal. 

Embed secure-by-design principles - with controls across the machine learning supply chain. 

Invest in SOC visibility - ensuring faster detection and coordinated response. 

Share intelligence - contributing to collective defence and preparing for new resilience legislation. 

Why This Matters 

The report is a timely reminder: AI isn’t a future challenge, it’s a present one.  

Defensive models, processes, and cultures need to be recalibrated now because adversaries are already operating at AI speed. 

At Avella, we see this as a call to action for the security community: to adopt smarter defences, enable our people with the right tools and training, and collaborate across sectors. Resilience will not come from technology alone, but from how well we combine human expertise, secure design, and shared intelligence. 

The organisations that thrive will be those who treat AI not just as a risk to be managed, but as a catalyst for strengthening cyber resilience.