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    OPINION                                                                   MAY 29, 2026     |  The Indian Eye 10

                              The Making of a Mythos:

            AI-Enabled Cybersecurity and the

               Emerging Architecture of Access

             Anthropic’s release of the frontier AI model Claude Mythos Preview has caused significant trepidation, as its autonomous

              code-reasoning capabilities surfaced previously undetected vulnerabilities across major operating systems and software
                  infrastructure. India needs to secure critical infrastructure by updating, modernising or replacing legacy systems

            MEGHNA PRADHAN

               n April 2026, Anthropic stated
               that  its  frontier  artificial  intel-
            Iligence model, dubbed Claude
            Mythos Preview, had unprecedented
            cyber  capabilities that made  it too
            dangerous to release publicly. They
            disclosed that the Large Language
            Model (LLM), during its testing
            phase,  had  identified  ‘thousands  of
            high and critical severity vulnerabili-
            ties’, many of which have been, and
            continue to be, validated by cyberse-
            curity experts. These include discov-
            ering  and  exploiting  a  27-year-old
            Zero Day Vulnerability (0-day) in
            OpenBSD, finding a 16-year-old bug
            in media processing library FFMpeg,
            and  patching  271  vulnerabilities  in
            Firefox 150 based on a single evalu-
            ation cycle.
                While Mythos Preview’s ca-
            pabilities  mark  a  significant  step
            in the development of AI systems,
            their potential has rung alarm bells         For India, Mythos is not an issue because it creates a novel vulnerability, but because it significantly compresses
            among global cybersecurity com-                                      the timeline for existing threats (File photo)
            munities, financial institutions and
            governments.  The  global  financial   launched Project Glasswing, an AI   es important concerns. Access to a   US had initially restricted Anthropic
            elites have especially highlighted   consortium comprising companies   system with such glaring implications   from  expanding  the  number  of  en-
            cyber threats posed by Mythos. An-  such as Amazon Web Services, Ap-  for the security of global financial and   tities for strategic reasons. The US
            thropic has disclosed that Mythos   ple, Broadcom, Cisco, CrowdStrike,   cyber systems is being administered   Commerce Department’s Center for
            was used to conduct what could es-  Google, JPMorgan Chase, the Linux   at the discretion of a private entity   AI Standards and Innovation, along
            sentially be called ‘digital robbery’   Foundation, Microsoft, NVIDIA,   to other private entities, without a   with Anthropic, OpenAI, and Goo-
            on systems across the world, which   and Palo Alto Networks, as well as   statutory framework, treaty obliga-  gle,  is  also  discussing  the  potential
            has led to fears that the system may   over 40 other organisations with ac-  tions, or accountability mechanisms.   development of a pre-deployment
            further be misused for mass looting   cess to the system.           Additionally, the selected partners   evaluation framework.
            of bank accounts, paralysis in inter-  Anthropic’s response to Mythos’s   are, barring a few exceptions, largely   The Mythos reveal has sent
            national payment systems, or spark   capabilities has been to create an AI   American companies, most of which   alarm bells ringing across the globe,
            a  crisis  of  confidence  in  extant  fi-  consortium consisting of some of the   already have access to advanced AI   and  India  is  no  exception.  On  23
            nancial systems.                  major big tech companies and finan-  capabilities and strong cybersecurity.  April 2026, Finance Minister Nirma-
                Global finance leaders and cen-  cial institutions. On the surface, the   There are additional reports that   la Sitharaman convened a high-lev-
            tral bankers from countries such as   logic of Project Glasswing remains   Anthropic has been engaging with   el meeting. Minister of Electronics
            the US, Canada, the EU, the UK,   defensible: a public release of the   US national-security institutions to   and Information Technology Ashwi-
            Germany, South Korea and India    LLM would give malicious actors   negotiate terms of access to Mythos,   ni Vaishnaw, heads of banking and
            have  expressed  concerns  and  inter-  the tools to damage structures that   possibly as part of a broader effort to   key cybersecurity bodies assessed
            est in accessing the LLM to plug   the current cybersecurity apparatus   rebuild relationships strained since   Mythos-related cybersecurity risks to
            vulnerabilities  in  their  financial  sys-  is not equipped to defend. However,   the fallout from the earlier contro-  financial institutions. While deeming
            tems. Simultaneously, Anthropic has   the structure of this project also rais-  versial defence AI partnership. The   Continued on next page... >>

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