IMF warns of ‘inevitable’ AI-powered threats to global financial system

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.

“IMF analysis suggests that extreme cyber-incident losses could trigger funding strains, raise solvency concerns, and 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 and cost of exploiting vulnerabilities.

The warning comes weeks after AI company Anthropic cautioned that its yet-to-be-released “Mythos” model was incredibly adept at finding and 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 told Fox News that an “all-government” and 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 and 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 that the global financial system was not ready for the cybersecurity threats posed by AI.

“We are very keen to see more attention to the guardrails that are necessary to protect financial stability in a world of AI,” she told CBS News, seeking global collaboration on the issue.