IMF warns AI-powered cyberattacks could trigger systemic financial shocks

At a time of rapidly accelerating cyber risk driven by artificial intelligence, cybersecurity is a core financial stability issue and should be treated as such by policymakers, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in a Thursday (May 7) blog post. Because attacks are becoming faster, automated and more sophisticated, the existing cybersecurity measures must […] The post IMF Recommends New Resilience Standards to Counter AI Cyberattacks appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

Advances in artificial-intelligence can strengthen markets’ defense against cyber threats but the technology now has the capacity to cause a macro-financial shock too, the IMF warns.

The IMF is warning that advanced AI-powered cyberattacks pose a serious threat to global financial stability. "IMF analysis suggests that extreme cyber-incident losses could trigger funding strains, raise solvency concerns, and disrupt broader markets," the lender warned in a new report. The report urged greater international cooperation and emphasized resilience, since breaches are "inevitable" -- particularly for emerging economies with weaker defenses. Agence France-Presse reports: The study's authors highlighted the risks posed by the highly interconnected nature of the global financial system, with advanced AI models able to "dramatically reduce" the time and cost of exploiting vulnerabilities. [...] The IMF warned that emerging and developing countries, "which often have more severe resource constraints, may be disproportionately exposed to attackers targeting regions with weaker defenses." The risks, the authors said, were systemic, cut across sectors and came with the threat of contagion, with the reliance on a small number of platforms and cloud providers likely to increase "the impact of any single exploited weakness." "Defenses will inevitably be breached, so resilience must also be a priority, specifically to limit how far incidents spread and ensure rapid recovery," the report said. IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva warned last month that the global financial system was not ready for the cybersecurity threats posed by AI. "We are very keen to see more attention to the guardrails that are necessary to protect financial stability in a world of AI," she told CBS News, seeking global collaboration on the issue. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) analysis suggests that extreme cyber-incident losses could trigger funding strains, raise solvency concerns, and disrupt broader markets.

The IMF called for treating cybersecurity as a core stability issue as new AI tools let even unskilled attackers breach critical infrastructure.