Concerns have been raised about Anthropic’s Claude Mythos<\/a>, which the company says is highly adept at cyber-security and hacking tasks.<\/p>\n The RBNZ also says geopolitical tensions could increase the risk of cyberattacks and technology outages.<\/p>\n “While no material cyber impacts have been observed to date during the Middle East conflict, the sector\u2019s reliance on cloud service providers was highlighted when infrastructure supporting these services was targeted. Cyberattacks consistently feature among the most prominent systemic risks identified in international surveys.”<\/p>\n The RBNZ goes on to say cyber resilience and business continuity planning remain among its key supervisory priorities, reflecting a need to safeguard the stability and integrity of core financial services.<\/p>\n The ‘one material cyber incident reported’ was at the RBNZ’s own ESAS<\/p>\n The prudential regulator says it also keeps an eye on how financial markets infrastructure (FMI) providers identify and manage cyber risks. FMIs enable payments clearing and settlement and securities transactions.<\/p>\n It notes that between April and September last year,\u00a0one material cyber incident was reported. The incident was at the Exchange Settlement Account System (ESAS), NZ\u2019s key high-value payment system used by banks and other financial organisations to settle transactions in real time. ESAS is\u00a0owned and operated by the RBNZ.<\/p>\n “In the first quarter of the year, one of New\u00a0Zealand\u2019s domestic FMIs [ESAS] experienced an outage that disrupted services for all its participants, including one in Australia. This affected about $4.5 billion of transactions, which is approximately 15 percent of the $29.8 billion average daily balance, based on 2025 data.”<\/p>\n “This interruption caused flow-on disruption in financial markets that affected at least three other FMIs, as participants faced delays in completing critical transactions. The entity immediately activated its incident response plans and the outage was resolved within three hours, highlighting the importance of strong operational resilience and effective contingency arrangements across FMIs,” the RBNZ says.<\/p>\n It says standard incident management processes were successfully invoked at ESAS, with the problem resolved within three hours and all delayed transactions immediately processed.\u00a0<\/p>\n “A comprehensive incident management report was completed and shared with all ESAS account holders,” a RBNZ spokesman says.<\/p>\n APRA seeks ‘step-change’<\/p>\n The RBNZ’s comments about AI come after the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) last week called for “a step-change” in how banks, insurers and superannuation trustees manage AI-related risks as the technology continues rapidly evolving.<\/p>\n