Anthropic aims to expand Mythos access to European banks – report

Anthropic is preparing to make its Mythos AI model available to banks in Europe as lenders worldwide seek to assess the technology after initial access was granted to major US banks, reported Reuters.

Cybersecurity specialists consider Mythos a serious challenge for banks and their older technology infrastructure, the report noted.

The issue drew warnings from regulators and policymakers at last week’s International Monetary Fund Spring meeting in Washington.

Several US banks have already received access, while other institutions are still awaiting entry.

One of the people said Anthropic intends to widen availability of Mythos to banks in Europe and the UK, as well as to other organisations.

The rollout is subject to security checks to make sure access is handled safely, that person said, declining to be identified.

A second person said European banks could receive access within days, while the first said the process could take days or weeks. Bloomberg had earlier reported that Anthropic was expected to make Mythos available to UK financial institutions soon.

Anthropic did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment.

At the outset, Anthropic offered the model to participants in its Project Glasswing programme and roughly 40 other organisations involved in building or maintaining critical software infrastructure.

JPMorgan Chase, a member of Glasswing, is the only bank Anthropic has publicly identified as having access. However, Bank of America has been part of the initiative from the beginning and has been conducting internal testing of Mythos, the news agency said.

Other US banks have more recently indicated they have also obtained access, as regulators move quickly to study the cyber risks associated with the new AI model.

German central bank president Joachim Nagel said all institutions should be able to access Anthropic’s Mythos model in order to preserve a level playing field and reduce the risk of misuse.

In India, the central bank is holding discussions with international regulators, domestic lenders and government officials to gauge the possible risks linked to Mythos, according to Reuters. 

According to those sources, the Reserve Bank of India’s early assessment broadly matches that of other regulators: Mythos could heighten cyber risk by speeding up the identification and exploitation of software flaws.

The RBI could seek direct talks with Anthropic.

India’s payments body, the National Payments Corporation of India, is attempting to obtain early access to Mythos with a limited number of banks to examine vulnerabilities and “day zero” cyber risks before any wider distribution.

That may prove difficult, however, because Anthropic’s Mythos systems is hosted on tightly controlled servers in the US, and testing with local data in overseas jurisdictions could be hard to arrange.

The latest moves come as regulators in the US and UK discuss cyber security concerns tied to Anthropic PBC’s newest AI model with major banks, amid broader worries about risks to critical financial infrastructure. 

Bloomberg reported that financial authorities in parts of Asia are also paying closer attention to cyber threats associated with Mythos.