Cyber defence firms near capacity as AI driven attacks surge

Leading cyber defence consultancies are operating at near full capacity following a significant increase in artificial intelligence enabled cyberattacks over the past year. A senior risk advisor has warned that the market is experiencing an unusual dynamic where top incident response firms are struggling to accept new work due to overwhelming demand. This surge in activity has forced teams to work around the clock to manage the volume of security breaches affecting major organisations.

The retail sector has been particularly hard hit by these incidents, with Marks and Spencer, the Co-operative Group and Asos all facing substantial operational disruption after being targeted by hackers. More recently, attacks across Europe targeted supermarket refrigerators and the French national blood service, causing equipment to raise their temperatures. These high profile events have intensified pressure on incident response providers, who are now reporting that they are unable to take on additional clients despite the growing need for structured detection and recovery processes.

Businesses that maintain robust response capabilities can mitigate financial and reputational damage, according to the risk advisor. However, the current strain on the sector highlights a critical gap in market capacity. In a related development, BT announced plans to launch a new managed security service using Microsoft technology to capitalise on this rising demand for cyber defence solutions. The expansion of the sector comes as companies seek to protect their infrastructure against increasingly sophisticated threats.

Separately, the risk chief cautioned that while artificial intelligence is a transformative technology, it does not automatically constitute a good investment. He noted that professional services firms have invested heavily in frontier AI tools that alter traditional workflows, yet questions regarding return on investment persist. These concerns contributed to a recent decline in technology stocks in the United States, where investors expressed fears that political shifts could hinder the rollout of data centres.