BSP urges banks to prepare for frontier AI cyber risks

MANILA, Philippines – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has urged financial institutions to bolster defenses against frontier artificial intelligence (AI), warning it could fuel more sophisticated cyberattacks with little human intervention.

In Memorandum No. M-2026-034, the BSP outlined measures to manage risks from frontier AI systems capable of identifying software vulnerabilities, generating exploit pathways and launching multi-stage cyberattacks.

READ: BSP sets AI governance framework for banks

Article continues after this advertisement

Although access remains limited, the BSP said the rapid development of these systems could enable increasingly adaptive and scalable cyberattacks targeting financial institutions, third-party service providers and critical infrastructure.

FEATURED STORIES

BUSINESS

BUSINESS

BUSINESS

The BSP urged supervised institutions to improve attack surface visibility by maintaining updated inventories of internet-facing assets, cloud services, identities, critical applications and software dependencies, including third-party and open-source systems.

It also called on firms to strengthen baseline cybersecurity, reduce their attack surface through micro-segmentation, zero-trust architecture, timely software patching and replacing obsolete systems, while minimizing unnecessary internet exposure.

In addition, the BSP encouraged financial institutions to strengthen authentication, deploy AI-powered cybersecurity tools for patch management, threat detection, exposure management and security orchestration, and update business continuity and contingency plans to address AI-enabled cyber threats.

READ: AI strategies for banks to match fintech innovation

Article continues after this advertisement

“They are intended to complement and strengthen existing risk management and control measures, thereby ensuring that emerging risks are effectively identified, assessed, and mitigated,” the BSP said.

“Supervised institutions must ensure that their cybersecurity and technology risk management frameworks, as well as cyber hygiene practices, remain robust and resilient against the increasing speed, scale, and sophistication of AI-enabled threats,” it added. /pai INQ

Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.

Your subscription has been successful.