(Correct Bruce Ross’s title to Group Head, AI, not chief technology officer, in paragraph 17) <\/p>\n
By Nivedita Balu <\/p>\n
TORONTO, July 13 (Reuters) – Canada’s federal banking regulator warned the country’s largest financial institutions about the risks of Anthropic’s Claude Mythos and other advanced AI models, saying the new technology \u200ccould increase cyber threats and reduce the time institutions have to identify and fix vulnerabilities, according to an email sent in April. <\/p>\n
The regulator, the Office \u200cof the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, sent the email to chief technology officers, chief information security officers, and chief risk officers across the financial industry, including the big banks and insurers, according to documents \u200bReuters obtained through an access-to-information request. <\/p>\n
Regulators globally are trying to assess cybersecurity risks such as Anthropic’s frontier AI model Mythos. Cybersecurity experts say Mythos, an AI model described as extremely capable at finding and exploiting cybersecurity vulnerabilities, poses significant challenges to the banking industry and its legacy technology systems. <\/p>\n
“Advanced artificial intelligence models, such as Anthropic Claude Mythos, significantly compress the timeframe for effective risk mitigation,” OSFI said in the email. <\/p>\n
“Accordingly, this bulletin is grounded in our existing guidance and outlines sound practices that institutions can adopt to enhance the \u200cspeed and effectiveness of risk identification, mitigation and response.” <\/p>\n
Additional \u2060contents of the email were redacted due to some sections of the Access to Information Act. An acknowledgment of the risks of Mythos from OSFI could ensure Canadian banks, insurers and other regulated institutions invest in technology to protect clients from cyber risks. <\/p>\n
After Reuters \u2060sent questions to OSFI last week, the regulator on Monday posted a public bulletin on generative and agentic artificial intelligence online. <\/p>\n
“OSFI takes a technology\u2011neutral, risk\u2011focused approach to emerging technologies, including advanced artificial intelligence models such as Mythos. Our focus is not the technology itself, but how federally regulated financial institutions govern and manage the risks associated with its use,” the regulator \u200bsaid \u200bin an emailed response to Reuters questions. <\/p>\n
In early April, Canadian bank executives met with regulators to \u200bdiscuss the risks posed by Mythos shortly after U.S. Treasury Secretary \u200cScott Bessent and then-Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell convened an urgent meeting with bank CEOs to warn of cyber risks posed by Anthropic’s latest artificial intelligence model. <\/p>\n
OSFI sent the email to company executives on April 29. <\/p>\n
RAPIDLY CHANGING LANDSCAPE <\/p>\n
OSFI is responsible for regulating and maintaining the stability of Canada’s financial sector, from banks to pension funds, and identifying risks emerging from foreign interference, geopolitics and new technology. <\/p>\n
The cyber capabilities of some frontier AI systems are considered so powerful that access has been restricted, with euro zone banks currently excluded from Mythos. <\/p>\n
Anthropic has also had a tumultuous relationship with the U.S. government. A judge blocked its initial blacklisting by the Pentagon in March, and the conflict \u200chas eased following the private release of Anthropic’s Mythos. <\/p>\n
Three of Canada’s big six banks – Royal \u200bBank of Canada, TD Bank and BMO – have outlined a plan to earn millions from their investments \u200bin AI as the banks moved from experimental AI projects to applying \u200bthem in chatbots, building internal tools and lowering their reliance on third-party tools. <\/p>\n
Bank of Nova Scotia, CIBC and National Bank have also \u200cdisclosed several AI initiatives. <\/p>\n
The Canadian government has said it has access \u200bto Anthropic’s Project Glasswing, which allows companies \u200bto have access to Mythos. It is not clear which, if any, banks in Canada are using it. Some banks deferred comments to the Canadian Bankers Association, which said banks have invested heavily to protect the financial system and are complying with robust requirements from OSFI on cyber risk management and incident \u200breporting. <\/p>\n
In an interview in June, RBC’s AI Group Head Bruce \u200cRoss said Mythos underscored a shift in the cyberattack landscape, making it imperative for organizations to respond rapidly since attack methods can emerge as \u200bsoon as new vulnerabilities are identified. <\/p>\n
“The way we’re (the industry) dealing with it is, building our own AI defenses… we’ll continue to do that,” \u200bRoss said. <\/p>\n
(Reporting by Nivedita Balu in Toronto; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Deepa Babington) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Correct Bruce Ross’s title to Group Head, AI, not chief technology officer, in paragraph 17) By Nivedita Balu…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":801235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,282076,276,277,52,49,48,59319,3862,282075,225716,85328,240767,95462,88187,80195,61],"class_list":["post-801234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-anthropic-claude","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-bank-of-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-banks","tag-chief-technology-officer","tag-chief-technology-officers","tag-claude-mythos","tag-cyber-risk","tag-cyber-risks","tag-cyber-threats","tag-financial-institutions","tag-osfi","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=801234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/801235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}