{"id":13801,"date":"2026-07-16T16:23:52","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T14:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rivistaeco.com\/?p=13801"},"modified":"2026-07-16T16:23:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T14:23:52","slug":"the-mythos-case-and-the-dangers-of-the-cyber-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rivistaeco.com\/en\/2026\/07\/16\/the-mythos-case-and-the-dangers-of-the-cyber-world\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mythos Case and the Dangers of the Cyber World"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anthropic’s decision to restrict access to Claude Mythos Preview to a small number of selected companies shines a spotlight on some of the central issues surrounding cyber risk and the way contemporary society perceives it. Presented as an artificial intelligence system capable of identifying software vulnerabilities more effectively than ever before, Mythos represents a genuine step change. Just as it strengthens cyber defences, AI is now also accelerating the discovery and exploitation of security flaws. Cyber risks are pervasive yet largely invisible, and for that very reason they often remain outside the sphere of public concern. Nevertheless, they affect citizens’ daily lives, the survival of businesses, and the resilience of critical infrastructure, from railways to healthcare systems. The message conveyed by Mythos is clear: the challenge is not merely technological, but also institutional, organisational, and cultural.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A new artificial intelligence model has recently entered the cybersecurity landscape: Claude Mythos Preview. Ironically, Anthropic, the American company that developed it, was “forced” to release it following a data breach that\u2014as was promptly pointed out in San Francisco\u2014was caused by human error. Yet this is not what makes Mythos truly significant. What makes it exceptional is that it is powerful\u2014perhaps too powerful. For precisely this reason, Anthropic has decided to restrict access to a small group of selected organisations, which will be allowed to use it to identify and correct security vulnerabilities in their software and information systems. The entire episode reveals several fundamental aspects of cyber risk and, more broadly, of the way contemporary society perceives digital threats. Mythos presents itself as a kind of “ChatGPT for cybersecurity,” marking a qualitative leap that extends far beyond the purely technical dimension.<\/p>\n

The Risk Does Not Concern Specialists Alone<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Cyber risks are among the most pervasive and far-reaching threats of our time. They affect citizens in their daily activities, businesses through their systems and processes, public institutions through their administrative apparatus, and critical infrastructure such as airports, energy grids, transport networks, and healthcare services. A single malfunction or successfully exploited vulnerability is enough to cause enormous economic damage, service disruptions, data losses, extortion, and consequences on a very large scale.<\/p>\n

Yet despite their central importance, cyber risks continue to remain largely in the background. They rarely occupy the centre of public debate, seldom mobilise public opinion with the same intensity as other dangers, and are often perceived as an issue reserved for specialists. This is precisely where the Mythos case becomes especially significant: it clearly demonstrates that the most consequential risks of modern society are not necessarily the most visible or spectacular, but rather those that are constant, widespread, and silent.<\/p>\n

All Eyes on the Dark Side of Cyberspace<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Anthropic has presented Mythos as a revolutionary system for identifying vulnerabilities in information systems. We are witnessing a genuine leap forward, one that brings\u2014or ought to bring\u2014the discussion onto a strategic level, involving senior corporate leadership and public authorities, much as the introduction of ChatGPT transformed the debate surrounding generative artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

Anthropic’s decision not to release the model publicly and instead restrict access to a limited group of organisations working in cybersecurity highlights its profoundly dual nature. On the one hand, a technology of this kind could make a decisive contribution to strengthening digital resilience by enabling organisations to identify vulnerabilities, correct weaknesses, and improve the security of companies and critical infrastructure. On the other hand, those very same capabilities, if exploited by malicious actors, could become instruments of attack, extortion, sabotage, and destabilisation. Nor is Mythos likely to remain a unique case. In all probability, it is merely the first representative of a new generation of models\u2014including those currently under development in other parts of the world, Asia included\u2014that will possess comparable capabilities within a matter of months, transforming what is today a paradigm shift into a phenomenon of global significance.<\/p>\n

It is no coincidence that, from the very first public discussions, attention has focused more on the model’s potential offensive applications than on its defensive ones. This reflects a structural characteristic of cyberspace: tools of this kind can serve both as weapons of defence and of attack, yet there remains a substantial imbalance in favour of the latter. Today, criminal organisations, organised groups, and hostile state actors are able to adopt the most advanced models very rapidly, while businesses and public administrations are often constrained by organisational, regulatory, and infrastructural limitations. In many cases, secure operating environments are lacking, governance models remain inadequate, and there are no clear rules governing access to the computational resources required.<\/p>\n

It is precisely this dual nature, combined with the unequal capacity to adopt these technologies, that makes cyber risk one of the defining strategic issues of our time. The threat lies not only in the existence of technical vulnerabilities, but in the fact that their discovery and possible exploitation are now being accelerated by artificial intelligence. In other words, AI does not merely add another element to the existing landscape of cyber risk: it changes its scale, its speed, and its intensity. What previously required considerable time, scarce expertise, and substantial resources can now become faster, cheaper, and more accessible. As a consequence, the gap continues to widen between the pace of technological innovation and the ability of institutions, businesses, and citizens to fully understand\u2014and above all to govern\u2014its implications.<\/p>\n

A Call to Change Course<\/strong><\/h3>\n

From this perspective, the Mythos case sends a clear message. At the institutional and political level, it is necessary to build a more flexible regulatory framework, capable of adapting to extremely rapid technological change instead of perpetually lagging behind it. But it is equally essential to act on the level of infrastructure and governance: the effective adoption of these tools requires access to computing power, secure environments, and models of cooperation between the public and private sectors.<\/p>\n

Italy already ranks among the world’s leading countries in terms of available computing capacity and computational power. Suffice it to consider supercomputing systems such as Leonardo at Cineca or the new initiatives promoted with the support of the National Cybersecurity Agency. Yet computational capacity alone is not enough. Advanced security standards are needed, together with robust capabilities to protect both data and the processing of information. Above all, there must be a significant acceleration in the way these resources are made securely accessible and usable, within a framework of public and private infrastructures that can be shared and integrated. What is required, to a large extent, is a transformation of governance, system architectures, and models of cooperation. Without such an evolution, there is a risk that technological advantages will remain unrealised or will be exploited unevenly. Here Europe can\u2014and must\u2014play a more decisive and substantial role, not only by making additional funding available, but also by promoting models of cooperation and resource sharing.<\/p>\n

The urgency of this challenge is confirmed by another important signal. So far, the only government laboratory to have published a structured assessment of Mythos’s cyber capabilities is the United Kingdom’s AI Security Institute. This is a significant indication because it demonstrates how essential it is for governments to possess their own public testing and evaluation capabilities for systems of this kind. At the same time, it points towards a possible future in which governments, businesses, and research centres use cases such as Mythos to build shared infrastructures for testing, auditing, and coordinated response.<\/p>\n

At the corporate level, the Mythos case can likewise act as a catalyst, encouraging organisations to reconsider cybersecurity not as an ancillary cost but as a driver of operational continuity, reputation, and innovation, while stimulating investment in automated detection, risk management, and workforce training. Within this framework, it becomes crucial for the European institutions to seize the opportunity to accelerate the initiatives already underway in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity\u2014from the implementation of the AI Act to the development of simpler and more predictable frameworks governing the use of dual-use models\u2014working more closely with European companies and the scientific community to integrate independent evaluation capabilities, access to computing resources, and models of public-private cooperation.<\/p>\n

A Cultural Challenge Before a Technological One<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Modern society has accustomed us to fearing above all those risks that are the most visible, the most dramatic, or the most symbolically powerful. We fear exceptional events, sudden disasters, catastrophes that capture the imagination. Yet the risks that exert the greatest impact on our societies are often the least spectacular: those that quietly infiltrate infrastructures, data, networks, everyday habits, and technological dependencies. Cyber risk belongs entirely to this category. It is less theatrical than many other threats, but infinitely more pervasive in everyday life; less conspicuous, yet more widespread; less evocative symbolically, but often far more likely in practical terms.<\/p>\n

Seen in this light, the Mythos case is not merely another episode in the evolution of artificial intelligence. It is also a mirror reflecting our own age. It reveals a society that depends ever more heavily on digital systems while still struggling to recognise the systemic nature of its own vulnerability. And it suggests that the real challenge is not only technological, but also cultural, organisational, and political: developing an awareness of risk\u2014and a capacity to govern it\u2014that is commensurate with the complexity of the digital world in which we live, transforming cases such as Mythos from simple warning signals into opportunities for a collective leap in maturity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Emanuele Borgonovo is Professor at Bocconi University and Research Affiliate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. An expert in risk analysis and sensitivity analysis, he has introduced numerous innovative methods in these fields.<\/em><\/p>\n

Andrea Rigoni is Managing Partner at Altirium and has worked on governmental and national cybersecurity for more than thirty years. He advises both public institutions and private organisations on digital security and emerging cyber risks.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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