Cybersecurity agencies in the United States and its “Five Eyes” allied nations issued a rare joint statement Monday warning that frontier AI models are expected to fundamentally transform offensive cyber capabilities within months and that adversaries may succeed in developing attacks against Western governments and companies.

Signed by agency heads from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the U.S., the communiqué warned leaders they must “act now” as AI increases the “speed, scale and sophistication of cyber threats.”

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The statement urges western companies to adopt AI models to strengthen their cyberdefenses, in ways the Financial Times described as “de facto outlining an arms race between targets and adversaries, without making clear what western governments themselves are doing to make their countries safer.” Civil libertarians have long warned that pushing AI deeper into government security infrastructures carries risks that the same tools lauded for detecting foreign intrusions could be turned with equal efficiency against journalists, dissidents, and domestic critics. 

The joint statement comes less than three weeks after Five Eyes warned of Chinese military intelligence services posing as online recruiters on Western professional networking sites like LinkedIn and targeting individuals with access to classified or privileged information. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning dismissed the notion that China was a “spy threat” to a bloc of Western countries that, he said, engages in extensive espionage efforts of its own. 

Last week, the State Department issued export control directives targeting Anthropic’s most advanced AI product designed for the general public, called Fable, over concerns it could successfully be used for cyberattacks and digital infiltration against the U.S.