The European Central Bank has told euro zone banks to prepare plans for AI-enabled cyberattacks as the technology becomes increasingly powerful.
Banks must submit plans by Oct. 31, according to Reuters. The ECB is asking lenders to secure internet-facing systems, update vulnerable technologies, strengthen monitoring and improve crisis management and information-sharing.
The mandate also affects the EU-area subsidiaries of JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Citi and Morgan Stanley, according to American Banker.
Separately, the European Systemic Risk Board has warned that increasingly capable frontier AI models could create systemic risks for the financial system by accelerating the discovery of software bugs and development of cyberattacks. As such, the window has shrunk for financial institutions to identify and patch security flaws before attackers can exploit them.
“With the proliferation of weaponised exploits corresponding to critical vulnerabilities powered by
AI and the corresponding reduction of defensive time buffers, the risk to individual critical or
important functions and institutions increases sharply,” the board said.
“If such risks materialise simultaneously across those functions and institutions, this could result in a permanent increase in systemic cyber risk for which, at present, there is no fully effective mitigation framework available.”
The board acknowledged that frontier AI models will also strengthen defensive cybersecurity capabilities. However, it concluded that offensive capabilities are likely to outpace defensive gains in the short to medium term, leaving financial institutions in a period of elevated risk.