FRANKFURT, May 13 (Reuters) – European Central Bank board member Frank Elderson called on eurozone banks on Wednesday to quickly prepare for potential cyberattacks launched with the help of Anthropic’s Mythos AI model or similar tools.
Elderson, who is vice-chair of the ECB’s banking supervision arm, said in an interview with the ECB Supervision Newsletter that eurozone banks’ lack of access to Mythos has increased the severity of the problem.
‘Lack of access is not an excuse for inaction. On the contrary, this makes it even more important for banks to mobilize and act now,’ he said.
Reuters reported this week that major U.S. banks, which were granted early access to Mythos, are rushing to fix dozens of data system weaknesses flagged by the tool.
Mythos is seen by cybersecurity experts as a significant challenge to the banking sector and its data technology systems, which has led to a series of warnings from regulators and authorities.
Elderson warned that banks need to prepare for future AI models that enable even more aggressive cyberattacks.
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“We need to be able to handle increasingly capable future models that can be released in relatively quick succession,” he said.
Central bank president Christine Lagarde said this month that the ECB is studying defenses against Mythos-guided cyberattacks, although it is at a disadvantage due to a lack of access to the model.
The global gap in AI model access could widen in Europe, with Japan’s three biggest banks likely to be cleared to start working with Mythos in about two weeks.
Elderson said banks — and the contractors they depend on — need to quickly patch even minor vulnerabilities that are typically only patched in longer software update cycles.
