ISLAMABAD: The threat of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered cyberattacks against Pakistan’s financial institutions and critical infrastructure is increasing, prompting the National Cyber Emergency Response Team (NCERT) to issue a security advisory warning of emerging AI-driven cyber threats.
According to the advisory, banks’ core banking systems, digital banking platforms, payment networks and customer-facing applications could become potential targets of increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks.
The warning also covers critical infrastructure, including oil and gas facilities, water utilities, electricity generation and distribution networks, manufacturing units and transportation systems.
The advisory cautioned that attackers could manipulate displayed bank account balances, potentially triggering confusion and panic among customers.
It highlighted that the use of artificial intelligence, automated bots, botnets and agentic tools is increasing the speed, scale and complexity of cyberattacks, making it more difficult for traditional security systems to detect and prevent them.
Banks are particularly at risk of attacks targeting their application programming interfaces (APIs), payment systems and digital banking applications.
To counter these threats, NCERT has recommended closely monitoring automated login attempts, repeated authentication failures, credential-stuffing activities, unusual API requests, unexpected changes in application configurations and suspicious transaction patterns.
The advisory also referred to cyberattacks targeting refrigeration and freezer systems at supermarkets in Europe, highlighting how attacks on interconnected operational systems can have physical and commercial consequences.
However, the involvement of AI in those European incidents has not yet been confirmed.
NCERT has further recommended strengthening integrity checks across customer-facing applications and core banking records, conducting independent transaction verification and monitoring bot-driven activities.
Financial institutions and critical infrastructure operators have also been urged to review their preparedness against AI-powered cyberattacks and strengthen security measures to protect essential digital and operational systems.
