European answer to Mythos: Mistral and BNP cooperate on bank security

French banking group BNP Paribas and Mistral AI have extended their AI partnership for three years and expanded it to new areas. At a joint press conference in Paris, the partners also discussed AI-powered threats to banks.

“The game changer is the speed at which we have to address vulnerabilities and the scale. There are lots of them discovered at once,” said BNP Paribas's IT chief, Marc Camus, according to Reuters. “So we need to prepare ourselves for that and that's something we are really working ‌on ⁠very, very hard.”

While the partners did not make any concrete announcements about their cybersecurity collaboration, Bloomberg reports that the Paris-based AI startup has developed its own AI model for cybersecurity and is in talks with European banks about its deployment. One of these partners is said to be BNP Paribas.

“The focus has been a lot on is Mythos accessible or not accessible, but let’s not forget there are other models from other firms that exist,” said Camus.

Europe seeks alternatives to Mythos

Since the introduction of Mythos in April, the banking industry has been under pressure. Anthropic's AI model is said to be able to detect security vulnerabilities significantly faster than previous systems and, in some cases, derive possible attack paths from them. Through the “Project Glasswing” initiative, primarily US partners, including major tech and security companies as well as several US banks, initially gained access to secure critical software before comparable capabilities become more widely available.

Whether and in what form European banks have now also received direct access to Mythos is not publicly confirmed. However, the recent statements by BNP Paribas and Mistral suggest that European institutions are continuing to search for alternatives. Anthropic competitor OpenAI has introduced its own cybersecurity model, which some European companies also have access to. With the Paris-based AI startup Mistral, a European answer to the problem is now apparently emerging.

The partnership between Mistral and BNP Paribas dates back to 2023. With the extension, the collaboration will go beyond mere access to large language models and also encompass software, solutions, and joint research and development projects, writes BNP Paribas.

(wpl)