The United States’ top banking regulators are placing a temporary halt on banking exams, allowing banks time to patch serious vulnerabilities exposed by Anthropic’s Mythos AI.
As originally reported by Bloomberg, the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) have paused a number of cyber-security-related bank examinations to give banks time to patch vulnerabilities and reinforce their cyber defences and networks.
Mythos is currently accessible only to a select few vendors, including banks and regulators.
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Alongside giving banks more time to ready their defences, it will also allow regulators to stress-test defences, such as the OCC, which is currently trialling the technology.
Despite the pause, examiners from the regulators are still keeping up with banks and any cyber issues, and maintain that the halt of exams does not mean a drop in regulatory oversight.
Earlier this month, Federal Reserve vice chair for supervision Michelle W. Bowman discussed the impact of AI on the financial sector.
“AI has become an integrated part of our daily experience. Financial institutions are developing their own applications and implementing vendor-assisted tools. Banks of all sizes benefit from its greater efficiency, speed, and content generation,” she said.
“Whether used in targeted modelling or enterprise-wide tools, AI will become a force multiplier for the financial system, and in the broader US economy.”
However, she also discussed the “dynamic nature” of AI, with models like Anthropic’s Mythos presenting both risks and benefits.
“The improved ability to identify cyber vulnerabilities comes with the potential to address these weaknesses to enhance cyber security. And of course, we have already seen that AI has the potential to improve efficiency and effectiveness, particularly within the financial system,” she said.
She also touched on how the Federal Reserve had been monitoring AI with banks and financial firms, adding that the focus was working to identify and mitigate cases where AI could lead to financial or cyber risk.
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Daniel Croft
Born in the heart of Western Sydney, Daniel Croft is a passionate journalist with an understanding for and experience writing in the technology space. Having studied at Macquarie University, he joined Momentum Media in 2022, writing across a number of publications including Australian Aviation, Cyber Security Connect and Defence Connect. Outside of writing, Daniel has a keen interest in music, and spends his time playing in bands around Sydney.