Innovation
Restricted access to powerful defensive AI tools like Anthropic’s Mythos leaves some companies, central banks, and nations more vulnerable than others.
Last month, Anthropic said its new artificial intelligence model, Mythos Preview, had discovered thousands of vulnerabilities in “every major operating system and web browser.” About 40 tech firms and institutions have initial access to Mythos to bolster their systems, but these do not include most central banks and governments, leaving much of the rest of the world vulnerable, and dependent on companies such as Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google to secure their systems.
Access to Mythos is crucial because cyberattacks are surging worldwide. AI-enabled entities increased attacks by 89% in 2025 from a year earlier, according to cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. AI agents can find and exploit software vulnerabilities better than most humans, and are arming even unskilled criminal and foreign actors with the means to target people, companies, and national infrastructure more easily and cheaply than before — and the effect is not equal.
“The rise of AI systems that are highly capable in cybersecurity poses a real challenge for companies and countries without many resources,” Nick Srnicek, a senior lecturer in digital economy at King’s College London, told Rest of World. “Widely used — often American — software is likely to be patched quickly and is less at risk, but more proprietary offerings, those typical of digital sovereignty initiatives, for instance, will struggle to see and patch vulnerabilities with the necessary speed.”
