Global banks confront growing threat from AI-driven cyberattacks as security risks intensify

Financial institutions in the UK, Canada, Australia, and the UAE are faced with intensifying AI-driven cyber threats, including sophisticated deepfakes and AI-powered vulnerability detection. Asian banks also face similar security threats.

Banks across Asia, including those in Singapore, among the region's largest, are tightening checks on artificial intelligence tools, as the very newest models have raised fears that hackers could find weak spots faster and launch ‌wider cyberattacks.

Anthropic has launched Claude Mythos Preview under Project Glasswing, a restricted-access cybersecurity program.

JPMorgan Chase is a publicly named launch partner, while Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley have access to, or are testing, the model, Reuters reported.

Mythos is Anthropic's most advanced AI model to date, designed for defensive cybersecurity tasks.

Its capabilities have sparked fears about the threat to traditional software security after the AI startup said the preview had uncovered "thousands" of major vulnerabilities in "every major operating system and web browser."

On Thursday, Australia's prudential regulator warned that banks were not keeping pace with AI developments.

"What Mythos does ... is it amplifies the risk," Singapore's biggest bank, DBS Group, CEO Tan Su Shan told reporters in a briefing after the lender posted first-quarter earnings that beat expectations.

"From both a speed perspective, it's faster to market, and from a volume perspective, the blast radius is fast," she added.

Tan said attackers could use such tools to find weaknesses faster, but banks could also use them to defend faster. DBS still ‌sees AI as "a net positive," she said, citing gains in coding and operations.

Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation, Singapore's second-largest lender, said it backed responsible AI use after strict checks.

"All such solutions undergo rigorous assessment and validation before deployment," Praveen Raina, OCBC's head of group operations and technology, said in a statement to Reuters on Thursday.

United Overseas Bank, the city-state's third-largest lender, said that while AI is a "strategic pillar" in its digital transformation journey, its use is governed by "existing cybersecurity controls and clear internal guardrails."

"We take a disciplined and responsible approach to innovation," a UOB spokesperson said in a statement to Reuters on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Standard Chartered Chief Executive Bill Winters told reporters on Thursday that Anthropic's Mythos is a "sensational representation" of a broader trend of rising cyber risks, though he said the bank is well prepared.

"Is this a particularly unusual time? No, I don't think so. I think we've had this; this threat has been present for many years," he said. "Just the level of sophistication has increased."

Experts weigh when the most sensitive financial institutes will be completely safe from the cyber threats.

Additionally, they are concerned about how banks can balance rapid AI adoption with the need for robust cybersecurity safeguards.