Bank of America hires 1,000 contractors to fix flaws found by Mythos
That’s a lot of flaws.
Bank of America office in downtown Toronto, Canada. Photo by REUTERS/Arlyn McAdorey
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- Bank of America says it hired 1,000 contractors to fix vulnerabilities found by AI models.
- CEO Brian Moynihan said Anthropic’s Mythos was among the models used.
- US and European regulators are pressing banks to explain how they control AI agents and cyber risks.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
US financial giant Bank of America (BoA) said it had hired an additional 1,000 contractors to fix vulnerabilities discovered by advanced AI models before criminals can exploit them.
BoA CEO Brian Moynihan told CNBC that the contractors were hired in the second quarter of this year, in addition to the 3,000 people the bank already had "in that area."
The CEO didn't specify how critical the uncovered vulnerabilities are, only adding that Anthropic’s Mythos was used, among other models.
Claude developer Anthropic released Mythos to a limited group of banks, technology companies, and government agencies in April 2026.
When the latest frontier-type models were released, the bank was forced to quickly find a way to address these AI-enabled risks, Moynihan told CNBC.
However, the CEO emphasized that the bank should also be "mindful that the people doing the software development are the people trying to sell us the services."
Banking watchdog ramp up AI scrutiny
Meanwhile, Reuters reported that regulators in the US are asking banks how they use autonomous AI agents, monitor their decisions, limit their authority, and shut them down when necessary.
The European Central Bank has given banks an end-of-October deadline to develop plans to protect themselves from AI-enabled cyber threats.
Cybernews has reported on multiple cases involving AI-powered attacks on the banking sector. For example, Italian private bank Fideuram transferred €95 million ($108 million) to fraudsters impersonating senior executives and a lawyer.
Meanwhile, JPMorgan Chase began blocking third-party AI agents from accessing retail customer accounts.
It's unclear how much Bank of America has already spent on its efforts to fix vulnerabilities that were discovered. However, its boss said the bank spent more than a couple of hundred million dollars on software remediation and regulatory issues related to anti-money laundering compliance in the third quarter.
This week, the US Department of the Treasury announced that it had fined BoA $1.2 billion for "failure to mitigate and report priority national security risks, including Chinese money laundering networks and illicit finance along the southwest border."
