An AI model that can find and exploit software vulnerabilities on its own, including one that sat undetected for 27 years, is exactly the kind of thing that keeps cybersecurity professionals up at night. Now it exists, and the Financial Times is raising alarms about what it means for global security.
Anthropic’s Claude Mythos Preview, announced on April 7, 2026, has autonomously discovered thousands of zero-day vulnerabilities. For the uninitiated, a zero-day is a software flaw that nobody knows about yet, which means nobody has patched it yet, which means anyone who finds it first has the keys to the kingdom. Mythos found thousands of them.
What Mythos actually does, and why that’s a problem
Among its discoveries was a flaw in OpenBSD, the operating system widely regarded as one of the most secure in existence, that had been hiding in plain sight for 27 years. That’s not a typo. A vulnerability older than most TikTok users was sitting there, undiscovered by human researchers, until an AI model casually flagged it.
The UK AI Safety Institute ran evaluations on April 13, 2026, and confirmed that Mythos excelled at autonomously exploiting vulnerabilities in controlled environments. In English: when placed in a simulated hacking challenge, the model performed exceptionally well without human guidance.
The operative phrase there is “controlled environments.” How the model performs against hardened, real-world systems remains an open question.
Project Glasswing and the controlled rollout
Anthropic did not release Mythos to the public. Instead, the company launched Project Glasswing, a program that grants limited access to selected organizations focused on reinforcing software security.
Initial partners included AWS, Microsoft, and Google, with commitments of up to $100 million earmarked for defensive usage.
By early June 2026, the access footprint had expanded considerably. Over 150 organizations across more than 15 countries now have some level of access to Mythos. That expansion happened alongside US government interventions that shaped how and to whom the model was made available.
Reports have also surfaced regarding the National Security Agency’s involvement in the model’s offensive capabilities.
What this means for markets and investors
The financial world has noticed. Market analysts have flagged volatility among tech stocks, with some experts linking investor anxiety about AI capabilities like Mythos to potential multi-trillion-dollar impacts across multiple sectors.