Key Takeaways
- A new AI model from China, known as GLM-5.2, is reportedly as proficient at detecting security vulnerabilities as Mythos.
- This has caused concern among US lawmakers, who already regard Mythos as a potential threat to national security.
- The repercussions could be catastrophic, with businesses under mounting pressure to overhaul their approach to cybersecurity.
China has finally caught up with Mythos on cybersecurity. Zhipu AI, known as Z.ai, has released its open-weight GLM-5.2, and experts are concerned that it could match up to Claude’s Mythos, which is considered the gold standard in cybersecurity.
While it reportedly lags behind in general areas, China appears to have closed the gap between itself and the US in the realm of defense, with Z.ai demonstrating a similar level of proficiency in detecting security vulnerabilities.
The news will cause panic to echo through the halls of power. The US government has gone to great lengths to restrict China’s access to Mythos and related models, with such tools regarded as serious threats to national security.
China Rivals Mythos on Cybersecurity With New AI Model
China’s Z.ai has released its latest AI model, GLM-5.2, which can detect security vulnerabilities as effectively as Mythos, researchers claim. While it can’t compete with the likes of Claude and ChatGPT in terms of general performance, it has proven highly capable in “cybersecurity scenarios.”
Revealed in April to significant alarm, Mythos is a tool for detecting vulnerabilities in cybersecurity infrastructure. US lawmakers have warned that it could instead be used to power a catastrophic wave of cyberattacks.
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In the interim, the federal government has been engaged in a protracted saga with Anthropic surrounding public access to the platform. Recently, it granted the company permission to release its latest model, Mythos 5, to a group of about 100 businesses and federal agencies.
Cheaper & Publicly Available
Z.ai GLM-5.2 is an “open-weight” model, which means that it can be downloaded and operated by anyone with the relevant hardware. It can also be modified, with bad actors theoretically able to remove safety guardrails and use it for illicit purposes.
“An attacker can run it locally without safety guardrails, fine-tune it against their specific targets, and operate with zero visibility to any provider or defender.” – Travis Lanham, CTO and founder of Armadin
Compounding these anxieties, GLM-5.2 is also significantly cheaper than comparable US models, including Claude Opus 4.8 and ChatGPT-5.5. There are reports that it could be an “illegal distillation” of those two models, with Anthropic earlier this year expressing concern that Chinese companies were launching attacks to steal its model weights.
Businesses Must Act Now to Avert Security Disaster
There are fears that the repercussions could be catastrophic. Business cybersecurity is already in a dire position. As attackers harness AI to commit increasingly sophisticated data breaches, firms suffer the impacts of a yawning skills gap. If it falls into the wrong hands, GLM-5.2 could make a bad situation infinitely worse.
Businesses need to overhaul their cybersecurity practices. As a starting point, they need to invest heavily into the best talent. With higher education facilities across the US doing their bit to close the skills gap, this should hopefully become easier in the near-future.
At the same time, firms should focus on training their existing workforce on how to spot cyberattacks. This is a problem that starts at the top, with a scarcely believable 98% of bosses unable to identify all the signs of a phishing attack.
And finally, it’s critical that companies adopt the latest technology. There is cause for optimism in this respect, with 83% of businesses already using AI to combat data breaches. As AI models continue to develop apace, so, too, do answers to the questions posed when powerful technology falls into the wrong hands.
