- MI5 director general Sir Ken McCallum has warned that the UK has entered a new era of national security, with foreign state threats from nations such as Russia, Iran and China reaching levels not seen since the Cold War.
- The security service is currently devoting more resources to countering state threats than during the Cold War, warning that foreign adversaries could maliciously disrupt essential UK infrastructure including banking, aviation and healthcare.
- State threat caseloads at MI5 have quadrupled over the past decade, with more than 50 arrests made in the UK over the last year in connection with Iran-backed operations, including a suspected plot against RAF Fairford.
- MI5 continues to counter terrorism from radicalised Islamists and extreme right-wing groups, recently sharing intelligence from an investigation into a 13-year-old right-wing extremist that enabled an international partner to prevent a lethal attack overseas.
- To tackle evolving risks, MI5 has launched a dedicated AI Threat Assessment Centre to evaluate how emerging technologies could be exploited by terrorists and hostile states to conduct warfare or develop new bioweapons.
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