Anthropic's Mythos sparks global alarm over financial system vulnerabilities
New Delhi, Apr 24 (PTI) Anthropic's AI model Mythos has raised a global debate over vulnerability in the financial system as the model has the capability to find weaknesses in their operating system and launch a potential cyber attack.
Mythos' advanced coding capabilities give it an unprecedented potential to detect cybersecurity weaknesses and develop methods to exploit them, sparking concerns that it could be used to disrupt banking systems.
Regulators across Asia, Europe and the United States have already warned banks to review their defences and preparedness.
Mythos has raised alarm bells among regulators, who see it as a significant challenge to the banking sector and its legacy technology systems.
Banks and financial institutions are most vulnerable as there is high interconnected (payments, markets, clearing systems) and dependence on legacy IT systems operating in real-time.
One successful cyberattack can cascade quickly across institutions and markets as one bank is linked to many domestic and global institution for inward and outward payment, forex trading, money market exposure, stock market linkage, depositories and payment gateway, etc.
Genesis of threat ------------------- The pilot launch of Claude Mythos on April 7 raised global concern with regard to their potential hacking capacity. During tests, Anthropic, the US-based artificial intelligence company, found that the latest model was highly skilled at cyber-security and hacking tasks, outperforming humans.
"Mythos preview has already found thousands of high-severity vulnerabilities, including some in every major operating system and web browser," Anthropic claimed.
Anthropic gave 12 tech companies access via Project Glasswing, which it described as "an effort to secure the world's most critical software".
According to reports, the company also said unauthorised access was made on its new model Mythos, which is deemed too dangerous for public release.
Global concerns and discussions ------------------------------------ The impact of new AI models on the financial sector was also discussed by policymakers and the central bankers at the IMF-World Bank meeting earlier this month and guardrails that could be put to protect stability in the financial system.
Globally, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, and the IMF chief have raised alarm over the cyber security posed by Mythos to the global monetary system.
India assesses preparedness of financial system ---------------------------------------------------- Concerned over the cybersecurity risks, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday convened a high-level meeting with heads of banks to assess emerging threats linked to advanced artificial intelligence models, amid global concerns over Anthropic's Claude Mythos system and its potential implications for financial data security.
Sitharaman asked banks to take all necessary pre-emptive measures to secure their IT systems, safeguard customer data, and protect monetary resources.
"It was advised that a robust mechanism for real-time threat intelligence sharing may be established among banks, @IndianCERT and other relevant agencies so that emerging threats are identified early and disseminated across the ecosystem without delay," the finance ministry had said in a post on X after the meeting.
Banks were further advised to immediately report any suspicious activity or cyber incident to the relevant authorities, including the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), and to maintain close coordination with all agencies concerned, it said.
These recommendations were given during a high-level meeting chaired by the finance minister with banks and key stakeholders with a view to assessing the potential impact of emerging threats linked to recent developments in AI models, particularly the possibility of such technologies being misused to weaponise software vulnerabilities.
The meeting assumed significance in view of the development of the Claude Mythos AI model by Anthropic, claiming that it has found vulnerabilities in many major operating systems.
During the meeting, the finance minister urged the Indian Banks' Association (IBA) to develop a coordinated institutional mechanism to respond swiftly and effectively to any such threats.
She also directed banks to engage the best available cybersecurity professionals and specialised agencies to continuously strengthen the defensive and monitoring capabilities of banks.
The finance minister on Friday said that all the lenders have been asked to work together on it under the leadership of SBI chairman C S Setty, who also chairs the Indian Banks' Association.
"In the coming weeks, there will be a lot of interaction within the banks, understanding where more investments will have to be made, what kind of technologies can come in, how AI itself can be used for countering this AI challenge," Sitharaman said. PTI DP HVA