UK financial regulators are urgently assessing the risks posed by Anthropic’s latest AI model after concerns that its ability to uncover software vulnerabilities could expose major financial institutions to new cybersecurity threats, the Financial Times reported.
Officials at the Bank of England, the Financial Conduct Authority, and HM Treasury are in talks with the National Cyber Security Centre to examine potential vulnerabilities in critical IT systems revealed by Claude Mythos Preview, according to the FT, which also reported that British banks, insurers, and exchanges are expected to be warned about the risks at a meeting with regulators in the coming weeks.
The UK response follows a move by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to call in leaders of some of the biggest Wall Street banks for discussions about the model’s ability to identify cybersecurity weaknesses that could be exploited by malicious actors, the newspaper said.
When Anthropic announced limited access to Mythos last week, the company said the model had already found “thousands of high-severity vulnerabilities,” including flaws in every major operating system and web browser, some of which had gone undetected for decades, according to the FT. Anthropic warned that such capabilities could soon spread beyond actors committed to safe deployment and that the consequences for economies, public safety, and national security could be severe.
The issue is due to be discussed at the next meeting of the UK’s Cross Market Operational Resilience Group, which brings together regulators, financial companies, and infrastructure providers to discuss sector-wide threats. The group includes representatives from major banks, financial infrastructure firms, insurers, the NCSC, the FCA, and HM Treasury, according to the report.
The report comes after a series of cyberattacks last year on major UK companies including M&S, the Co-op Group, Harrods, and Jaguar Land Rover, which caused significant operational disruption, the FT noted.
Read more at the Financial Times