FSA’s Urgent Call to Prepare for AI-Driven Cyber Warfare and Financial Institutions’ Responsibilities

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1. Background and the Evolving Threat (Hyper-Accelerated Vulnerability Discovery via AI)

On May 22, 2026, the Financial Services Agency (FSA) and the Bank of Japan (BOJ) issued an unprecedented emergency request to domestic financial institutions. This initiative aligns with “Project YATA-Shield,” a comprehensive national cybersecurity package introduced by the National Cyber Security Office on May 18. The move is triggered by the emergence of frontier AI models, such as “Claude Mythos Preview,” which possess advanced capabilities to rapidly identify software vulnerabilities and generate exploit codes. Consequently, the time gap between discovery and exploitation has shrunk dramatically, threatening a massive surge in rapid, large-scale zero-day attacks.

2. Three Short-Term Emergency Missions to be Completed “Within One Month”

The regulatory bodies strongly urge C-suite executives (specifically CIOs and CISOs) to exercise direct leadership and execute the following emergency measures within a strict one-month timeframe:

• Identification of Critical Systems: Financial institutions must pinpoint their most critical internet-facing services, such as online banking systems, ensuring that limited IT patching resources are strategically deployed based on risk assessment.
• Elimination of Technical Debt: Organizations must proactively close unnecessary network ports, delete obsolete privileged IDs, and apply all pending legacy patches to reinforce their baseline defenses for immediate response to newly discovered flaws.
• Re-evaluation of Vendor SLAs/SLOs: Given the heavy reliance on external IT vendors, institutions must review their Service Level Agreements (SLAs). This includes verifying vendor resource availability during weekends or holidays and ensuring support even if multiple clients require concurrent emergency patching.

3. Shifting Security Paradigms and Executive Decision-Making

To counter the “speed warfare” driven by artificial intelligence, the directive demands a fundamental shift away from conventional security operations:

• Rationalized Patch Testing: Instead of undergoing exhaustive testing cycles, institutions are encouraged to streamline operations. Executives must establish criteria that accept potential system glitches caused by brief testing in favor of deploying critical patches at maximum speed.
• Preparedness for Proactive System Shutdowns: If a critical exploit cannot be blocked in time, senior management must be prepared to make the strategic decision to deliberately take internet banking and other essential operations offline. This protocol for “proactive shutdown” must be integrated into the organization’s Business Continuity Plan (BCP) to minimize overall damage.

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