Canadian bank executives and federal regulators met on Friday to talk about the cybersecurity risks tied to Anthropic’s newest AI model, Mythos. The tool has put the industry on edge because of its ability to find and exploit software bugs far faster than any human coder.
Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI chatbot, is backed by tech giants like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Nvidia. While the startup is a darling of the tech world, its latest model is causing worry for the heads of big Canadian banks.
The meeting of the Canadian Financial Sector Resiliency Group (CFRG) mirrors a similar high-level summit in the U.S. earlier this week. There, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met with Wall Street leaders to figure out exactly what Mythos means for global financial stability.
The CFRG is led by Alexis Corbett, the Bank of Canada’s chief operating officer, and includes heavy hitters from the Department of Finance, OSFI, and Canada’s biggest banks, including Desjardins.
Bank of Canada spokesperson Paul Badertscher told the Globe and Mail that Friday’s session wasn’t an emergency response to a specific hack. Instead, it was a situational awareness meeting to make sure everyone is on the same page about how this tech works.
Anthropic itself says Mythos is a tricky tool. It is designed to help companies find and fix holes in their code, but that same power makes it a perfect weapon for hackers. The company claims the AI has already found thousands of vulnerabilities in nearly every major operating system and browser.
Because of the risk, Anthropic is keeping Mythos under lock for now. It isn’t available to the public, but the company has started Project Glasswing, a private preview for a few major firms like Microsoft and JPMorganChase to help them strengthen their own security.
The Canadian Bankers Association said that banks already have strict rules in place to manage tech risks, especially since they already lean on AI to catch fraud and stay ahead of hackers.
Are we on the verge of Cyberdyne Systems coming into real life here with Mythos? Someone be on standby to page John Connor.
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so we are worried about having the best secure banks after it finds all the bugs? yeah sounds right.