India pushes banks to fortify cyber defenses against triggered by Anthropic's Mythos model

India’s finance ministry has asked banks to step up cybersecurity readiness as concerns rise over the risks posed by Anthropic’s Claude Mythos model to the country’s financial infrastructure, according to a post on X.

Banks were advised to reinforce IT infrastructure, secure customer data, and ensure protection of financial resources. They were also asked to escalate any cyber incidents or suspicious activity to authorities such as Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) and maintain coordination across institutions.

High level engagement: The finance and IT ministry alongside senior executives of commercial banks carried out a review to assess how emerging AI models could be misused to exploit software vulnerabilities in the tech stack and financial data security. The Finance Ministry and the central bank are also carrying out an assessment examining potential vulnerabilities in the financial system.

A common response framework: The Indian Banks Association has been tasked with putting in place a common response framework, while authorities are working toward a system for real-time sharing of threat intelligence across banks and regulatory bodies to enable quick detection and response.

Model scrutiny: Anthropic has not made the Mythos system publicly available, citing misuse risks, and is instead allowing limited access under a controlled programme for defensive cybersecurity use.