#638
Poacher Turned Gamekeeper
Published:
Apr 18, 2026
Author:
Sarah Parsons Wolter
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There's an old tension in security circles: the best way to understand how to break something is to have already broken it. Locksmiths make decent burglars. Former hackers make great security experts. This logic is uncomfortable but exactly why the Treasury Secretary and Federal Reserve Chair last week scrambled to summon Wall Street's CEOs to a meeting at Treasury HQ. The poacher had a new tool, and the gamekeepers needed a briefing.
The poacher in question is Anthropic’s Mythos, the latest frontier AI model that has, quite deliberately, been handed to a small circle of systematically important institutions before the world gets access. The usual suspects of global financial plumbing are now running the model against their own systems to probe for the kinds of vulnerabilities Mythos has already proven capable of finding.
The message from Washington to Wall Street is clear: the gun exists, it might be pointed at you, now use it to bulletproof the vault. The irony is Anthropic is fighting the administration in court over the Pentagon’s decision to label it a supply-chain risk, whilst also being the administration’s chosen instrument to stress-test the financial system. Welcome to the dual-use era: where the company accused of being a security risk is the one being asked to help secure the kingdom.
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