Cyber criminals are stepping up surveillance of British firms, scanning online devices more than 4,000 times a day to find weaknesses, according to data from BT.

Automated bots are driving a 300% rise in malicious scans over the past year as attackers probe company networks and connected devices, from laptops and phones to office cameras.
BT’s analysis found professional services including accountancies, law firms and consultancies were most often targeted by ransomware, followed by retail and hospitality firms.

To help counter rising threats, BT has partnered with cyber security specialist CrowdStrike to launch BT Business Antivirus Detect and Respond.

The move follows CrowdStrike research showing that only 11% of small businesses currently use AI in their cyber defences, even as attackers increasingly deploy it to scale their attacks.

Daniel Bernard, chief business officer at CrowdStrike, commented: “Adversaries are weaponising AI to launch faster, more targeted attacks – and BT’s data shows the scale of that threat is only accelerating.”

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre recently noted that keeping pace with frontier AI capabilities will be critical to maintaining cyber resilience over the next decade.

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