WASHINGTON: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned on Thursday of the risks to global financial stability posed by cyberattacks powered by advanced artificial intelligence tools. calling for greater international cooperation on the issue.
“IMFanalysissuggests that extreme cyber-incident losses could trigger funding strains, raise solvency concerns,. disrupt broader markets,” the lender warned in a new report.
The study’s authors highlighted the risks posed by the highly interconnected nature of the global financial system, with advanced AI models able to “dramatically reduce” the time. cost of exploiting vulnerabilities.
The warning comes weeks after AI company Anthropiccautionedthat its yet-to-be-released “Mythos” model was incredibly adept at finding. exploiting such weaknesses.
The model was particularly efficient at identifying vulnerabilities that developers and users had been previously unaware of. In the hands of hackers, such so-called “zero-day” vulnerabilities are considered particularly dangerous.
On Wednesday, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett toldFoxNews that an “all-government”. private sector effort was being made to test the model and ensure it does not cause harm to US businesses or government.
A day earlier. the US government announced a policy shift in which it would have access to tech giants’ new AI models to evaluate them before they are released. The IMF warned that emerging. developing countries, “which often have more severe resource constraints, may be disproportionately exposed to attackers targeting regions with weaker defenses.” The risks, the authors said, were systemic, cut across sectors and came with the threat of contagion, with the reliance on a small number of platforms and cloud providers likely to increase “the impact of any single exploited weakness.” “Defenses will inevitably be breached, so resilience must also be a priority, specifically to limit how far incidents spread and ensure rapid recovery,” the report said.
IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva warned last month. the global financial system was not ready for the cybersecurity threats posed by AI.
Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2026
Discussion
Sign in to join the thread, react, and share images.