An ethical hacker who just won major prizes at a prestigious international competition says her days of competing could be numbered due to the rise of AI tools like Claude Mythos.
Valentina Palmiotti – better known as Chompie – was the most successful individual at the annual Pwn2Own hacking competition in Berlin.
She told that, for now, AI tools were helping her to win “bug bounties” – money given to hackers who spot vulnerabilities in online systems before they can be exploited by cyber-criminals.
But she said systems like Mythos were so powerful that even champion hackers like her would soon struggle to compete with them.
AI has shaken the cyber-security world, with concerns focussing on Mythos in particular.
Its maker, Anthropic, claims the model has been able to find 1,600 vulnerabilities in hundreds of software programmes.
It says that makes Mythos so potentially dangerous that it can only be released to a select few governments and cyber-security institutions.
