• CISA's team is scanning government code repositories for bugs, sources say
  • Audits have already uncovered many vulnerabilities, two of the sources say
  • NSA has also been reported to use Mythos despite government blacklist

WASHINGTON, July 6 (Reuters) - The U.S. cyber defense agency CISA is using Anthropic's AI model Mythos to audit government software, three people familiar with the matter said on Monday, another sign of government enthusiasm for adopting the AI startup's tools even as the company navigates an ongoing standoff with the White House.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is using Mythos to scan government code repositories for bugs that could leave the door open for foreign spies and cybercriminals, the sources said.

Anthropic did not respond to questions about the initiative. A CISA representative said last month that he would check to see if there was anything to share about the matter but did not respond to further emails.

The scanning is being done by CISA's Attack Surface Evaluation team, according to one of the sources. The team is a group within CISA that conducts digital security assessments and hacking exercises across government.

Two of the sources said the audits had already uncovered a large number of vulnerabilities but did not elaborate. Reuters could not establish exactly how much government code the team had gone through or the nature or severity of the bugs it discovered.