US Treasury chief, Fed chair warn banks over cyber risks tied to Anthropic AI model: Report
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell held an urgent meeting with leading Wall Street executives this week amid growing concerns that Anthropic PBC's latest artificial intelligence model could heighten cyber risks for the financial system, Bloomberg News reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The meeting took place Tuesday at the Treasury Department in Washington and was organized on short notice to ensure major banks are aware of the potential risks posed by Anthropic's Mythos model and other similar systems, according to people familiar with the matter.
Officials sought to assess whether the country's largest banks are taking sufficient precautions to protect their systems against emerging threats linked to increasingly capable AI models, according to the report.
The previously undisclosed gathering underscores mounting regulatory concern that a new generation of AI tools could be exploited to carry out more sophisticated cyberattacks, posing a serious threat to financial stability.
The banks invited to the meeting are all considered systemically important by regulators, meaning disruptions affecting them could have broader consequences for the global financial system.
Anthropic has described Mythos as a significantly more powerful model with the ability, when prompted by users, to identify and exploit vulnerabilities across major operating systems and web browsers.
The company has limited access to the model to a small number of major technology and financial firms, including Amazon, Apple, and JPMorgan Chase, under an initiative known as Project Glasswing, which is aimed at securing critical systems before similar models become more widely available.
Anthropic has also said it held discussions with US officials before the model's release regarding its offensive and defensive cyber capabilities.
Among the bank executives summoned to the meeting were Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser, Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf, and Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, the people said. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon was unable to attend, according to the report.
Separately, Anthropic has been challenging the Trump administration in court after the Pentagon designated the company as a supply-chain risk, a move the firm has opposed. Earlier this week, a federal appeals court declined, for now, Anthropic's request to pause that designation.