Pakistan’s National Cyber Emergency Response Team (National CERT) has issued a comprehensive security advisory warning of escalating artificial intelligence-driven cyber threats targeting financial institutions and critical national infrastructure.
According to the advisory issued by the Cabinet Division in Islamabad, malicious actors are increasingly using advanced AI tools, automated bots, botnets and agentic systems to increase the speed and sophistication of their attacks.
Core banking networks, digital payment platforms and customer mobile applications face heightened risks of severe cyber disruption. Technical experts warned that unauthorised manipulation of displayed account balances could trigger widespread public anxiety and financial instability, and national regulatory authorities are instructing all financial organisations to enforce immediate security countermeasures.
The advisory highlights that critical utility infrastructure beyond the banking sector is also exposed to automated cyberattacks. Oil and gas installations, water management utilities, power generation plants and electrical distribution networks are listed as primary high-value targets.
Major industrial manufacturing hubs and national transportation management systems are also vulnerable to sophisticated digital intrusion. Security analysts emphasise that successful breaches of operational technology could disrupt essential public services and compromise economic activity, and infrastructure operators have been asked to audit network access protocols and isolate mission-critical management systems.
To counter the emerging risks, National CERT recommended strict operational monitoring across all corporate network interfaces and customer-facing application programming interfaces. Security teams must actively track automated login attempts, repeated authentication failures, credential stuffing campaigns and abnormal API requests.
The advisory cited recent cyber incidents in Europe, where attacks compromised refrigeration and cooling systems across several major supermarket chains. Those breaches caused tangible commercial damage and physical inventory loss, showing the real-world impact of infrastructure hacking. Formal investigations have not confirmed that AI was involved in those European incidents, but the pattern has put authorities on alert.
Pakistani cybersecurity authorities are urging local infrastructure operators to prepare for physical operational consequences stemming from digital breaches. Cross-sector threat intelligence sharing remains crucial for detecting coordinated global cyber campaigns.
National CERT urged all public and private entities to conduct immediate readiness assessments against bot-driven AI cyberattack vectors. Organisations are advised to implement independent transaction verification mechanisms to detect altered banking requests or unauthorised transfers, establish redundant data backups and upgrade encryption standards across core communications channels.
