Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman urges bankers to brace for AI threats amid Anthropic concerns

New Delh: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday convened a high-level meeting with heads of banks to assess emerging cybersecurity risks linked to advanced artificial intelligence models, amid global concerns over Anthropic's Claude Mythos system and its potential implications for financial data security.

During the meeting, Sitharaman asked banks to take all necessary pre-emptive measures to secure their IT systems, safeguard customer data, and protect monetary resources.

"It was advised that a robust mechanism for real-time threat intelligence sharing may be established among banks, @IndianCERT and other relevant agencies so that emerging threats are identified early and disseminated across the ecosystem without delay," the finance ministry said in a post on X.

Banks were further advised to immediately report any suspicious activity or cyber incident to the relevant authorities, including Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), and to maintain close coordination with all agencies concerned, it said.

These recommendations were given during a high-level meeting chaired by the finance minister, along with the Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw, with banks and key stakeholders with a view to assess the potential impact of emerging threats linked to recent developments in AI models, particularly the possibility of such technologies being misused to weaponise software vulnerabilities, the meeting assumed significance in view of development of the Claude Mythos AI model by Anthropic, claiming that it has found vulnerabilities in many major operating systems.

During the meeting, the finance minister urged the Indian Banks' Association (IBA) to develop a coordinated institutional mechanism to respond swiftly and effectively to any such threats.

She also directed banks to engage the best available cybersecurity professionals and specialised agencies to continuously strengthen defensive and monitoring capabilities of banks.

Appreciating the work done by banks so far in strengthening cybersecurity systems and protocols, she emphasised that the nature of the emerging threat from the latest AI Model is unprecedented and requires a very high degree of vigilance, preparedness and better coordination across financial institutions and banks.

According to a senior finance ministry official, the ministry and the RBI are studying the extent of risks that the Indian financial sector faces from this breach.

So far, Indian systems are secure and there is no need for unduly worrying, the official said, adding that the RBI is also doing due-diligence at its end to ensure India's financial sector is secure.

As per the reports, Anthropic said Mythos can outperform humans at cyber-security tasks, finding and exploiting thousands of bugs, including 27-year-old vulnerabilities, in major operating systems and web browsers.

Anthropic, an US-based artificial intelligence company, said unauthorised access was made on its new model Mythos, which is deemed too dangerous for public release.

Announced on April 7, Mythos is being deployed as part of Anthropic's 'Project Glasswing', a controlled initiative under which select organisations "Œare permitted to use the unreleased Claude Mythos Preview model for defensive cybersecurity".

Mythos is a powerful AI model that has sparked concerns among regulators about its unprecedented ability "Œto identify digital security vulnerabilities and potential for misuse".

Anthropic chose not to release Mythos publicly, arguing that its capabilities pose unprecedented cybersecurity risks, as per reports.