State-backed cyberattacks, AI deepfakes, and more: Experts reveal UK election cyber threats
Disinformation is expected to be among the top cyber risks for elections in 2024.
Andrew Brookes | Image Source | Getty Images
Britain is expected to face a barrage of state-backed cyber attacks and disinformation campaigns as it heads to the polls in 2024 — and artificial intelligence is a key risk, according to cyber experts who spoke to CNBC.
Brits will vote on May 2 in local elections, and a general election is expected in the second half of this year, although British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has not yet committed to a date.
The votes come as the country faces a range of problems including a cost-of-living crisis and stark divisions over immigration and asylum.
“With most U.K. citizens voting at polling stations on the day of the election, I expect the majority of cybersecurity risks to emerge in the months leading up to the day itself,” Todd McKinnon, CEO of identity security firm Okta, told CNBC via email.
It wouldn’t be the first time.
In 2016, the U.S. presidential election and U.K. Brexit vote were both found to have been disrupted by disinformation shared on social media platforms, allegedly by Russian state-affiliated groups, although Moscow denies these claims.
State actors have since made routine attacks in various countries to manipulate the outcome of elections, according to cyber experts.
Meanwhile, last week, the U.K. alleged that Chinese state-affiliated hacking group APT 31 attempted to access U.K. lawmakers’ email accounts, but said such attempts were unsuccessful. London imposed sanctions on Chinese individuals and a technology firm in Wuhan believed to be a front for APT 31.
The U.S., Australia, and New Zealand followed with their own sanctions. China denied allegations of state-sponsored hacking, calling them “groundless.”
Cybercriminals utilizing AI
Cybersecurity experts expect malicious actors to interfere in the upcoming elections in several ways — not least through disinformation, which is expected to be even worse this year due to the widespread use of artificial intelligence.
Synthetic images, videos and audio generated using computer graphics, simulation methods and AI — commonly referred to as “deep fakes” — will be a common occurrence as it becomes easier for people to create them, say experts.
“Nation-state actors and cybercriminals are likely to utilize AI-powered identity-based attacks like phishing, social engineering, ransomware, and supply chain compromises to target politicians, campaign staff, and election-related institutions,” Okta’s McKinnon added.
“We’re also sure to see an influx of AI and bot-driven content generated by threat actors to push out misinformation at an even greater scale than we’ve seen in previous election cycles.”
The cybersecurity community has called for heightened awareness of this type of AI-generated misinformation, as well as international cooperation to mitigate the risk of such malicious activity.
Top election risk
Adam Meyers, head of counter adversary operations for cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, said AI-powered disinformation is a top risk for elections in 2024.
“Right now, generative AI can be used for harm or for good and so we see both applications every day increasingly adopted,” Meyers told CNBC.
China, Russia and Iran are highly likely to conduct misinformation and disinformation operations against various global elections with the help of tools like generative AI, according to Crowdstrike’s latest annual threat report.
“This democratic process is extremely fragile,” Meyers told CNBC. “When you start looking at how hostile nation states like Russia or China or Iran can leverage generative AI and some of the newer technology to craft messages and to use deep fakes to create a story or a narrative that is compelling for people to accept, especially when people already have this kind of confirmation bias, it’s extremely dangerous.”
A key problem is that AI is reducing the barrier to entry for criminals looking to exploit people online. This has already happened in the form of scam emails that have been crafted using easily accessible AI tools like ChatGPT.
Hackers are also developing more advanced — and personal — attacks by training AI models on our own data available on social media, according to Dan Holmes, a fraud prevention specialist at regulatory technology firm Feedzai.
“You can train those voice AI models very easily … through exposure to social [media],” Holmes told CNBC in an interview. “It’s [about] getting that emotional level of engagement and really coming up with something creative.”
In the context of elections, a fake AI-generated audio clip of Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labour Party, abusing party staffers was posted to the social media platform X in October 2023. The post racked up as many as 1.5 million views, according to fact correction charity Full Fact.
It’s just one example of many deepfakes that have cybersecurity experts worried about what’s to come as the U.K. approaches elections later this year.
Elections a test for tech giants
Deep fake technology is becoming a lot more advanced, however. And for many tech companies, the race to beat them is now about fighting fire with fire.
“Deepfakes went from being a theoretical thing to being very much live in production today,” Mike Tuchen, CEO of Onfido, told CNBC in an interview last year.
“There’s a cat and mouse game now where it’s ‘AI vs. AI’ — using AI to detect deepfakes and mitigating the impact for our customers is the big battle right now.”
Cyber experts say it’s becoming harder to tell what’s real — but there can be some signs that content is digitally manipulated.
AI uses prompts to generate text, images and video, but it doesn’t always get it right. So for example, if you’re watching an AI-generated video of a dinner, and the spoon suddenly disappears, that’s an example of an AI flaw.
“We’ll certainly see more deepfakes throughout the election process but an easy step we can all take is verifying the authenticity of something before we share it,” Okta’s McKinnon added.
Oracle CEO Clay Magouyrk appears on a media tour of the Stargate AI data center in Abilene, Texas, on Sept. 23, 2025.
Kyle Grillot | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Oracle on Friday pushed back against a report that said the company will complete data centers for OpenAI, one of its major customers, in 2028, rather than 2027.
The delay is due to a shortage of labor and materials, according to the Friday report from Bloomberg, which cited unnamed people. Oracle shares fell to a session low of $185.98, down 6.5% from Thursday’s close.
“Site selection and delivery timelines were established in close coordination with OpenAI following execution of the agreement and were jointly agreed,” an Oracle spokesperson said in an email to CNBC. “There have been no delays to any sites required to meet our contractual commitments, and all milestones remain on track.”
The Oracle spokesperson did not specify a timeline for turning on cloud computing infrastructure for OpenAI. In September, OpenAI said it had a partnership with Oracle worth more than $300 billion over the next five years.
“We have a good relationship with OpenAI,” Clay Magouyrk, one of Oracle’s two newly appointed CEOs, said at an October analyst meeting.
Doing business with OpenAI is relatively new to 48-year-old Oracle. Historically, Oracle grew through sales of its database software and business applications. Its cloud infrastructure business now contributes over one-fourth of revenue, although Oracle remains a smaller hyperscaler than Amazon, Microsoft and Google.
OpenAI has also made commitments to other companies as it looks to meet expected capacity needs.
In September, Nvidia said it had signed a letter of intent with OpenAI to deploy at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia equipment for the San Francisco artificial intelligence startup. The first phase of that project is expected in the second half of 2026.
Nvidia and OpenAI said in a September statement that they “look forward to finalizing the details of this new phase of strategic partnership in the coming weeks.”
But no announcement has come yet.
In a November filing, Nvidia said “there is no assurance that we will enter into definitive agreements with respect to the OpenAI opportunity.”
OpenAI has historically relied on Nvidia graphics processing units to operate ChatGPT and other products, and now it’s also looking at designing custom chips in a collaboration with Broadcom.
On Thursday, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan laid out a timeline for the OpenAI work, which was announced in October. Broadcom and OpenAI said they had signed a term sheet.
“It’s more like 2027, 2028, 2029, 10 gigawatts, that was the OpenAI discussion,” Tan said on Broadcom’s earnings call. “And that’s, I call it, an agreement, an alignment of where we’re headed with respect to a very respected and valued customer, OpenAI. But we do not expect much in 2026.”
OpenAI declined to comment.
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