CyberSecurity

What is cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity is the protection of internet-connected systems – hardware, software, data, cloud services and, increasingly, the AI tools businesses now rely on – from cyber attacks.

In a computing context, security comprises cybersecurity and physical security – both are used by organisations to protect against unauthorised access to data centres and other computerised systems. Information security, which is designed to maintain the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data, is a subset of cybersecurity.

Today there is one big new variable in the picture: artificial intelligence. Attackers and defenders are both using it, and the gap between organisations that keep pace and those that don't is getting wider every year.

What are the consequences of a cyber attack?

Cyber attacks can disrupt and cause considerable financial and reputational damage to even the most resilient organisation. If you suffer a cyber attack, you stand to lose assets, reputation and business, and potentially face regulatory fines and litigation – as well as the costs of remediation.

And attacks are not rare. The UK government's Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025/26 found that 43% of UK businesses and 28% of charities identified a breach or attack in the previous 12 months – rising to 65% of medium-sized and 69% of large businesses.

The cyber threats organisations face

Larger organisations tend to have a realistic appreciation of the threats they face, but many small and medium-sized enterprises still believe they are too small to be a target. They aren't.

All internet-facing organisations are at risk. It's not a question of if you'll be attacked, but when. Most attacks are automated and indiscriminate, exploiting known vulnerabilities rather than targeting specific organisations – and AI now lets attackers scan, write convincing lures and adapt at a scale that used to require a team of skilled people. Your organisation could be being breached right now and you might not even be aware.

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How AI is changing the threat landscape

The UK's National Cyber Security Centre assesses that AI will almost certainly make parts of cyber intrusion more effective and efficient, increasing the frequency and intensity of threats, and warns of a growing divide between systems that keep pace with AI-enabled threats and those that remain vulnerable. In practice, this looks like:

• Flawless phishing at scale – generative AI removes the spelling mistakes and clumsy wording we used to teach staff to spot, and can personalise each message using information scraped from LinkedIn and company websites.
• Deepfake voice and video – in 2024, engineering firm Arup confirmed it lost around US$25 million after an employee in Hong Kong was deceived by a video call featuring deepfaked senior colleagues.
• Faster exploitation – AI helps attackers find and weaponise weaknesses in exposed systems more quickly, shrinking the window between a patch being released and it being exploited.
• Attacks on AI itself – prompt injection, data poisoning and manipulation of AI assistants and agents that have access to company data and systems.
• Shadow AI and data leakage – staff pasting customer data, contracts or source code into unapproved AI tools.
• A lower barrier to entry – AI-enabled tools are spreading to a wider range of criminal and state-linked actors.

Readiness is lagging behind. The same government survey found that 31% of businesses were using or considering AI, but only around a quarter of those (24%) had cyber security practices in place to manage AI risks.

What is cybersecurity all about?

A successful cybersecurity approach has multiple layers of protection spread across the computers, networks, programs, data – and now AI systems – that one intends to keep safe. In an organisation, the people, processes and technology must all complement one another to create an effective defence from cyber attacks.

People

Users must understand and comply with basic data security principles: strong, unique passwords with multi-factor authentication, caution with attachments and links, regular backups, and clear rules on what can and can't be shared with AI tools. Because voices and faces can now be faked, staff should also verify any unusual request for payments, passwords or data through a second, trusted channel – even if it appears to come from the boss.

Processes

Organisations must have a framework for dealing with both attempted and successful cyber attacks. The NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 explains how to govern cyber risk, identify assets and risks, protect systems, detect and respond to threats, and recover from successful attacks. In the UK, Cyber Essentials is a practical, government-backed baseline for smaller organisations.

Technology

Technology gives organisations and individuals the tools needed to protect themselves. The main things to protect are endpoint devices (computers, phones, smart devices and routers), networks, cloud services and, increasingly, the AI applications connected to them. Common technologies include next-generation firewalls, DNS filtering, endpoint detection and response (EDR), email security, multi-factor authentication, continuous monitoring and secure, tested backups. AI also works for the defenders: behavioural analytics can spot unusual activity in seconds that a human might never notice.

Why is cybersecurity important?

In today's connected world, everyone benefits from strong cyber defence. At an individual level, an attack can result in anything from identity theft to extortion attempts to the loss of important data like family photos. Everyone relies on critical infrastructure such as power plants, hospitals and financial services companies, and as AI is built into more of these systems the attack surface keeps growing. Securing these organisations is essential to keeping our society functioning.

Everyone also benefits from the work of cyber threat researchers in government agencies, security vendors and the open-source community. They investigate new and emerging threats, reveal new vulnerabilities, educate the public and strengthen the tools we all use, making the internet safer for everyone.

Types of cybersecurity threats

In 2012, Roger A. Grimes published a list in InfoWorld of the five most common cyber threats: socially engineered Trojans, unpatched software, phishing, network-travelling worms and advanced persistent threats. Since then, cloud computing, mobile devices, the Internet of Things, the explosion of data – and now generative AI – have completely reshaped the landscape.

Today, the list looks more like this, and real-world attacks typically combine several of them:

• AI-generated phishing and business email compromise (BEC)
• Deepfake voice and video impersonation
• Ransomware and data-theft extortion
• Supply chain and third-party compromise
• Credential theft, MFA fatigue and session hijacking
• Attacks on AI systems (prompt injection, data poisoning)
• Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs)
• Trojans, spyware and other malware
• Botnets and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)
• Wiper attacks, data manipulation and data destruction
• Intellectual property theft and theft of money
• Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attacks
• Drive-by downloads and malvertising
• Rogue software
• Unpatched software

Unpatched software, seemingly the simplest vulnerability, can still lead to the largest leaks – the Panama Papers breach has been widely linked to outdated, unpatched web software.

Sources of cyber threats

In identifying a cyber threat, knowing who is behind it matters more than knowing the technology or tactics. Tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) evolve constantly – and AI is accelerating that – but the sources of cyber threats remain the same. There is always a human element: someone who falls for a clever trick. Go one step further and you will find someone with a motive. This is the real source of the threat.

State-linked groups have targeted elections, political campaigns and government agencies, while criminal groups and hacktivists target businesses of every size. Not every threat comes from abroad, and not every threat comes from outside the organisation.

Most common sources of cyber threats

• Nation states or national governments
• Organised crime groups (including ransomware-as-a-service gangs)
• Terrorists
• Industrial spies and business competitors
• Hacktivists and hackers
• Compromised suppliers and third parties
• Disgruntled or careless insiders

Cyber threat intelligence is necessary for organisations

Advanced threat actors such as nation states, organised cyber criminals and cyber espionage groups represent the greatest information security threat to organisations today. They are hard to detect because of their clandestine nature, resources and deliberate "low and slow" approach. Often, they are seen only through the digital traces they leave behind.

That is why organisations need visibility beyond their own network borders into the threats targeting them. This is known as threat intelligence. It starts with knowing your assets and monitoring mission-critical IP addresses, domain names and IP ranges, which can give advance warning while adversaries are still in the planning stages.

Threat intelligence draws on many sources – attack telemetry, malware samples, investigations, public and private information, website and social media monitoring, criminal forums, the security community and government agencies – and distils them into indicators such as:

• Attack signatures
• Domain names and host names
• IP addresses
• File names and registry data
• Vulnerabilities
• Catalogued malware

These indicators are enriched with context to show how they relate to threat actors and attack methods. AI and machine learning now help analysts find relationships across huge volumes of data that would be impossible to spot manually. The result is actionable insight: What does the threat mean? How do you resist it? What action should you take?

Intelligence is shared among leading public and private organisations, such as the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST), the National Cyber-Forensics & Training Alliance (NCFTA), the Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP), FS-ISAC for financial services and Health-ISAC for healthcare. In the UK, the NCSC publishes alerts and advisories that every organisation should follow.

Best practices for defence and protection

Today's best practice for cybersecurity is a hybrid approach. Keeping up with rapid, AI-driven advances in cyber threats requires capabilities that go beyond what is feasible for most in-house IT teams.

In-house IT security efforts

• Strong end-user education – handling data, recognising phishing and deepfakes, and procedures to counter social engineering
• A clear AI usage policy – approved tools and what data can be shared with them
• Up-to-date software and timely patching
• Multi-factor authentication everywhere
• Firewall and endpoint protection*
• IDS/IPS – intrusion detection and intrusion prevention systems*
• Security event monitoring*
• Regular, tested backups*
• Incident response plan*

Security partner efforts

• Penetration testing and vulnerability scanning
• Advanced, 24/7 threat monitoring of endpoints, networks and cloud
• Always up-to-date threat intelligence
• Emergency incident response staff and investigators on call

*If resources are not available in-house, any of these efforts can be handed to a managed security services provider such as GLCTech Sec.

How GLCTech Sec can help

GLCTech Sec helps UK organisations stay ahead of modern, AI-driven threats with managed services built for small and mid-sized businesses:

• Monitoring – managed infrastructure monitoring with dashboards and incident analysis, so problems are spotted before they become breaches.
• Security – managed, vendor-agnostic endpoint and network protection.
• Backup – automated backups and recovery reporting, so you can get back on your feet after ransomware or data loss.
• Free diagnosis – a no-commitment 15-day monitoring trial on your own infrastructure.

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