Treasury and Fed call bank CEOs to emergency meeting over Mythos threat

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell convened an emergency Tuesday meeting in Washington with CEOs from Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup to address cybersecurity threats from Anthropic's Mythos AI system. Mythos is an advanced AI model designed to discover and exploit zero-day vulnerabilities across mainstream operating systems and browsers, with capabilities to construct functional exploits targeting previously unknown security gaps. Anthropic has restricted Mythos access to approximately 40 tech companies including Google and Microsoft through Project Glasswing, avoiding public release due to the model's potential to reveal undiscovered weaknesses. The five banks briefed are all systemically important institutions whose disruption could trigger cascading failures across global financial markets, while cryptocurrency specialists warn Mythos could weaponize attacks against DeFi platforms and smart contracts. The Pentagon has separately initiated legal proceedings against Anthropic, designating the company as a supply-chain security risk.

Emergency government meeting with banking executives

• ▪JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon was notably absent from the emergency banking executives meeting about Mythos AI
• ▪Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent organized an emergency briefing with leading Wall Street banking executives to address cybersecurity threats associated with Anthropic's Mythos AI system
• ▪Banking leaders from Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup attended the emergency session about Mythos AI
• ▪The emergency briefing with banking executives occurred on a Tuesday in Washington, D.C., with the Treasury Department serving as host

Restricted access and Project Glasswing distribution

• ▪Google and Microsoft are among participants in Project Glasswing, which provides access to Mythos AI
• ▪Current access to Mythos AI remains confined to roughly 40 tech corporations through an initiative designated Project Glasswing

Perspective of Anthropic

• ▪Anthropic restricted Mythos AI distribution to approximately 40 technology companies to prevent malicious actors from accessing the vulnerability-detection capabilities

Perspective of U.S. Department of the Treasury and Federal Reserve

• ▪The Treasury Department and Federal Reserve characterized Mythos AI as representing a sharp escalation in cyber risk to the financial system
• ▪Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell deemed Mythos AI sufficiently threatening to warrant an emergency convening of systemically important bank leaders