Project Glasswing: Anthropic announces big tech consortium to test Claude Mythos AI model that could ‘reshape cybersecurity’

Anthropic has announced the launch of a new scheme that will see the firm collaborate with an array of tech giants on the future of AI security.

Dubbed ‘Project Glasswing’, the initiative will bring together Amazon, Apple, Broadcom, Microsoft, Cisco, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, and the Linux Foundation to test a new AI model aimed at bolstering defensive cyber capabilities.

Anthropic said the model in question, Claude Mythos, has the potential to “reshape cybersecurity” and will only be available to organizations involved in the project.

As part of the scheme, launch partners will be given access to Mythos Preview for use in “defensive security work” and share learnings on the capabilities of the model.

Access has also been granted to 40 additional organisations that build or maintain critical software infrastructure in a bid to secure open source ecosystems, Anthropic revealed.

The company said it will commit up to $100 million in usage credits on this front, as well as a $4 million donation to open source security organizations.

What Project Glasswing aims to achieve

Project Glasswing stems from Anthropic’s own observations on the capabilities of Claude Mythos in recent weeks. Speculation over the launch of Mythos was fueled by a data leak which saw information on the general-purpose model exposed online.

That data leak pointed toward significant improvements in cybersecurity, which Anthropic has since confirmed. The company noted that it wasn’t trained specifically for cybersecurity activities, but its capabilities are a “result of its strong agentic coding and reasoning skills”.

Simply put, Anthropic believes the model is powerful enough to warrant testing behind closed doors at trusted industry giants rather than releasing to the public, where it could be used for nefarious purposes.

“Given the rate of AI progress, it will not be long before such capabilities proliferate, potentially beyond actors who are committed to deploying them safely,” the company said in a statement.

“The work of defending the world’s cyber infrastructure might take years; frontier AI capabilities are likely to advance substantially over just the next few months. For cyber defenders to come out ahead, we need to act now.”

Claude Mythos testing shows solid results

According to Anthropic, Mythos Preview has identified “thousands of zero-day vulnerabilities” in recent weeks, many of which were critical.

Notably, those identified by the model were “often subtle or difficult to detect” and dating back decades. The oldest flaw detected by Mythos included a 27-year old bug in the OpenBSD operating system.

“It also discovered a 16-year-old vulnerability in a widely used video software in a line of code that automated testing tools had hit five million times without ever catching the problem,” the company said.

Anthropic revealed it is also engaged in discussions with US government officials about Claude Mythos Preview and its “offensive and defensive cyber capabilities”.

A new cybersecurity paradigm

Rory Bathgate

The launch of Project Glasswing is a seismic moment for Anthropic and one that could come to define the firm as it approaches a potential IPO later this year.

It’s worth underlining just how unusual it is for a tech company – let alone one that’s barely five years old – to announce a gated release of its software with such widespread endorsement.

While Google and Amazon are long-time backers of Anthropic, and Microsoft has recently joined in, the full-throated support of CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks reads to me as recognition that Claude Mythos Preview will usher in a serious leap in cybersecurity capabilities.

Here, cybersecurity companies that have long prided themselves on their proprietary AI are admitting that Anthropic’s latest release is already catching zero days that no other tools ever have.

We’ll have to wait and see just how effective it is and, with the release limited to launch partners and around 40 additional critical organizations, independent benchmarks can’t be established.

Examples of products launched in a similar manner that jump to mind include AI analytics tools for the intelligence and defense communities such as Palantir Gotham.

Anthropic also already provides a custom set of ‘Claude Gov’ models for US national security organizations, which have modified guardrails and are considered suitable for handling classified material.

I’ll be closely monitoring any movement in the discussions that Anthropic says it’s having with the US government on Claude Mythos Preview’s “offensive and defensive cyber capabilities”.

With Anthropic’s ongoing battle with the US Department of Defense, which has designated the frontier firm as a supply chain risk, the launch of Claude Mythos and partnership with such a wide range of tech giants could give it greater leverage over the US government.

Firms such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Apple have supported Anthropic in its legal action against the designation. All of these companies, along with other giants including Broadcom, Cisco, CrowdStrike, and Palo Alto Networks, are now publicly tied to Project Glasswing in another huge vote of confidence in Anthropic.

Google might be the most consequential partner here. Its involvement suggests that, at least for the time being, none of its Gemini models can offer the same comprehensive benefits as Claude Mythos Preview and this sends another big signal to the public sector: back this or fall behind.

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