Britain is deploying specialist military “hunt forces” overseas to track down hostile hackers and disrupt cyberattacks before they can cripple the country’s defence systems, as artificial intelligence dramatically accelerates the threat from foreign adversaries.
Soldiers, sailors and air force personnel are reportedly being sent to locations across Europe and Asia to identify and neutralise cyber threats before attackers can launch operations against British military networks.
The increasingly aggressive strategy marks a significant shift in the UK’s approach to cyberwarfare, with forces no longer relying solely on defending domestic networks but seeking to confront hostile operators closer to where attacks are being prepared.
Major General Mike Fayers, commander of the Defence Cyber and Electromagnetic Force (DCEMF), told The Times that the Ministry of Defence was being forced to respond to vulnerabilities within minutes rather than days because of the growing capabilities of artificial intelligence.
“Our adversaries are very cunning. This is not just an MoD issue, this is a whole-of-UK challenge,” he said.
The scale of the threat was illustrated by a recent wave of cyberattacks across Europe targeting refrigerators and freezers. Hackers exploited remote access vulnerabilities to manipulate temperatures, with a small number of British freezers also affected.
While the incidents may appear relatively mundane, military officials fear they demonstrate how easily connected devices and critical infrastructure can be exploited by hostile actors.
Maj Gen Fayers warned that AI was allowing attackers to identify and exploit weaknesses at unprecedented speed.
“We’ve seen AI now exploiting vulnerabilities at a speed we have not seen before. Whereas historically we would have had a few days to fix vulnerabilities, we are now in double-digit minutes to respond to those vulnerabilities,” he said.
The military’s “hunt force” is designed to take that battle directly to adversaries. Rather than waiting for attacks to reach British systems, specialist personnel travel physically to overseas locations and use digital techniques to identify those preparing cyber operations.
Deployments can involve personnel operating on land, at sea or aboard aircraft, according to reports. The activity is understood to require high-level authorisation, reflecting the sensitive nature of conducting operations against hostile networks beyond British territory.
“Whereas historically we have defended on our territory, we are now defending ourselves forward of our own networks,” Maj Gen Fayers told the newspaper.
“We are trying to hunt for our adversaries in places where they prepare before they target UK military systems.
“I mean sending people physically to places to virtually hunt for the adversary to protect our systems.”
The DCEMF was unveiled as part of last year’s Strategic Defence Review, bringing together specialist cyber capabilities and electromagnetic warfare. The latter can help protect British troops from enemy detection, communications interference and electronic jamming.
Maj Gen Fayers said he hoped the force would expand over the coming years as the military adapts to an increasingly complex digital battlefield.
The escalation comes amid growing warnings that hostile states could target Britain’s critical national infrastructure, including energy networks, transport systems, communications and financial services.
The Government has urged households to prepare for potential emergencies by keeping supplies of food, water and medicine, alongside wind-up radios. Defence Secretary Wes Streeting has warned that cyberattacks could disrupt supply chains and cause businesses‘ payment systems to fail.
Natural disasters, including flooding and wildfires, also pose risks to essential services, ministers have cautioned.
The latest military deployments underline how cyberwarfare is increasingly being treated as an immediate operational threat rather than a distant technological concern. With AI compressing the time available to identify and repair vulnerabilities, Britain’s defence planners are betting that the best way to protect the country may be to hunt its enemies before they ever reach its borders.
The message from military commanders is stark: the next major attack on Britain may begin thousands of miles away, in a computer network that has already been compromised before the first warning reaches London.
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