Banking Catastrophe Source Emerges in America, RI's Neighbours Already Preparing
Banking and financial regulators in various countries neighbouring Indonesia are beginning to take steps to anticipate the dangers of AI to the security of banking systems. The threat of AI breaching banking systems emerged after Anthropic released Mythos.
Mythos is Anthropic’s latest AI model, which has the capability to write top-level computer programming code, enabling it to quickly identify cyber vulnerabilities in all systems.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), which serves as the central bank and banking regulator in Hong Kong, has stated that it has communicated with the largest banks and increased vigilance against evolving AI cyber threats, including Mythos. Hong Kong’s banking industry is also preparing a response plan to AI threats.
In the near future, HKMA will introduce a Cyber Resilience Testing Framework focused on enhancing banks’ abilities to respond to and recover from systems during attack incidents.
HKMA has also formed a task force comprising regulators and private sector elements to examine, monitor, and respond to AI-related risks.
A spokesperson for the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) stated that they are closely monitoring the use of Mythos along with other regulators to assess its potential impact on the market. The same stance was expressed by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) as the banking industry regulator.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), which functions as the central bank, stated that AI developments could accelerate the discovery and exploitation of software vulnerabilities in information technology systems.
“Financial institutions must double their efforts to strengthen security defences, proactively identify and close vulnerabilities, and increase vigilance, including patching security systems as quickly as possible,” said MAS.
In South Korea, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) stated that it has held meetings with technology security officials from financial institutions to review risks related to Mythos.
Mythos’s capability in writing high-level code allows this AI to identify previously unseen security vulnerabilities.
Such capabilities raise concerns that the technology could be exploited to target banking systems, particularly banks still reliant on outdated technology infrastructure. If these gaps are exploited on a massive scale, the stability of the global financial sector is at risk.