Anne Keast-Butler, director of GCHQ, pictured during CYBERUK 2024 on May 14, 2024, in Birmingham, England. Matthew Horwood for CYBERUK | Getty Images News | Getty Images Britain and its allies have a "narrowing window" to keep ahead of security risks posed by China, Russia and other adversaries, the U.K.'s top intelligence agent will warn on Wednesday. In a rare public speech, Anne Keast-Butler, t...
Anne Keast-Butler, director of GCHQ, pictured during CYBERUK 2024 on May 14, 2024, in Birmingham, England. Matthew Horwood for CYBERUK | Getty Images News | Getty Images Britain and its allies have a "narrowing window" to keep ahead of security risks posed by China, Russia and other adversaries, the U.K.'s top intelligence agent will warn on Wednesday. In a rare public speech, Anne Keast-Butler, the director of GCHQ — the U.K.'s intelligence, cyber and security agency — will say Britain is at a "moment of consequence," with the country facing increasingly brazen behavior from hostile nations. "China is now a science and tech superpower with sophisticated capabilities across their intelligence, cyber and military agencies," Keast-Butler is set to say, according to excerpts from the speech released ahead of time by her office. "The ground beneath our feet is shifting," as AI continues to develop swiftly, she will say, with new technologies creating a "narrowing window for the U.K. and allies to stay ahead." watch now VIDEO 3:14 03:14 Sen. Mark Warner on a Chinese tech threat that will be bigger than Huawei The Bottom Line Earlier this month, two men became the first in history to be found guilty of spying on the U.K. for China. Last month, the FBI, along with cyber agencies from nine other countries — including the U.K., Germany, and Japan — collectively warned that China-linked actors were using covert networks and "botnet operations" to carry out malicious cyber activity. Cybersecurity must now become "ten times more urgent," according to Keast-Butler, who will call for tightening of digital defenses "from boardrooms to living rooms." Russia waging 'daily' hybrid warfare Keast-Butler will also focus on the rising threat from Russia, which she is set to accuse of "scaling up its daily hybrid activity against the U.K. and Europe." Moscow is "relentlessly targeting critical infrastructure, democratic processes, supply chains and public trust," she will say, warning tha...