King warns attackers are using automation.
The King has marked ten years of the National Cyber Security Centre with a letter warning that malicious actors now use automated technologies1. For a UK company, the attacker trying your door is increasingly a machine.
King warns attackers are using automation
King Charles III has warned that disinformation and other hostile online activity pose real challenges to trust and security in the digital age1. He did so in a letter to the National Cyber Security Centre, published by the NCSC on Saturday to mark its tenth anniversary1. The line that matters for business is a short one: malicious actors, he wrote, "continue to evolve their tactics by using automated technologies"2.
The NCSC was set up in 2016 as part of the Government Communications Headquarters, to protect the UK against cyber threats1. The King said its achievements included defending the country against cyber attacks, safeguarding democratic institutions and protecting "the critical infrastructure upon which daily life depends"1. He wrote that it had "built resilience across our public services, businesses and communities"2.
He put cyber security inside the wider argument about new technology. "From threats to our international order, to the need to balance the risks and opportunities of powerful new technologies, strong cyber security is fundamental to making the online environment safer and more resilient," he wrote1. He also said support for and investment in the next generation of cyber security professionals remained vitally important to secure the skills the nation will depend on2.
It is not the first time he has raised the subject this autumn. Last month he spoke to AI executives at Dumfries House in Ayrshire and warned of the "existential dangers" of the technology falling into the wrong hands1. Those who created these technologies, he told them, are "increasingly warning that AI risks developing darker capacities"1. In the letter he said he was "acutely aware" that much of what the NCSC does cannot be praised publicly1.
What automated attacks mean for you
A royal letter is not a threat assessment, and this one carries no new figures. Read plainly, it is a thank you note with one warning in it. But it is the right warning. An attacker using automation does not get tired, does not need to choose targets with care and pays almost nothing for each attempt. That changes the arithmetic for a firm of fifty people. You are not too small to be worth a go, because nobody had to decide to have a go at you.
The sensible response is dull, which is why it gets skipped. Turn on two step sign in wherever it is offered, make sure a named person owns the updates, and treat any unexpected request to log in or pay with suspicion, however familiar it looks. And if you are putting automated tools or AI agents to work in your own business, the same logic runs the other way: a system that acts without tiring needs a fence around what it can touch, for exactly the reason the attackers' tools are dangerous.
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