UK financial sector prepared for Mythos and others, says BoE co-chaired group

LONDON, April 22 (Reuters) - The Bank of England and other financial services representatives on Wednesday said the sector was prepared for developments around Anthropic's Mythos artificial intelligence model and other emerging frontier AI models.

Mythos is viewed by cybersecurity experts as posing significant challenges to the banking industry and its legacy technology systems, prompting a series of warnings from regulators and policymakers gathered at last week's International Monetary Fund spring meeting in Washington.

The Cross Market Operational Resilience Group, which brings together British financial authorities, a range of firms in the sector and the National Cyber Security Centre, discussed the cybersecurity challenges presented by new AI models.

"The financial services industry is prepared for these developments and emerging cyber risks more broadly, as well as the opportunities for growth and efficiency that they bring," the group's co-chairs, the Bank of England and industry body UK Finance, said in a statement.

"There was agreement that firms will need to continue to focus on effective practices," the statement added, including using AI capabilities to strengthen cyber defence and exploring how to automate mitigation and response measures.

Firms were also encouraged to review recent guidance shared by the global Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center to support their preparedness, the statement said.

The group will meet again in early May, along with a broader range of industry participants. (Reporting by William James; Editing by Alex Richardson)