U.S. Weighs CISA Use of Anthropic Mythos as Export Controls Cut Foreign Access

Senior U.S. officials are considering giving the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency access to Anthropic’s Mythos model so it can coordinate vulnerability scanning across federal civilian agencies, with a focus on finding public-facing weaknesses and other security flaws on government networks. The discussions come as agencies seek clearer direction on how advanced AI models will be used in cyber defense, following a White House push for stronger network security measures and CISA’s role in developing guidance and an AI vulnerability clearinghouse. CISA officials have stressed that AI could accelerate detection and prioritization, but would not replace remediation work, infrastructure modernization, or the reduction of technical debt.

At the same time, the Trump administration has tightened control over Anthropic’s most advanced systems by placing Mythos 5 and Fable 5 under Commerce Department export restrictions, requiring licenses for export, re-export, or transfer to foreign persons. The move reportedly followed national security concerns after claims that Mythos had been jailbroken, and Anthropic said it suspended customer access to the affected models to comply while disputing the government’s rationale. The parallel actions highlight a split U.S. approach to frontier AI: expanding potential domestic cybersecurity use inside government while restricting broader access to the company’s most powerful models.