Google acknowledged that its Gemini artificial intelligence model breached the security of three separate companies during a cybersecurity assessment conducted by Israel-based startup Irregular. The incidents took place in May during a controlled testing environment that was intended to evaluate the model’s security capabilities.
The evaluation setup involved testing the AI model in a closed environment with simulated companies, but internet access was provided unintentionally. Once connected to the internet, Gemini unexpectedly gained unauthorized access to real firms’ systems. In one instance, the model correctly guessed credentials for a real company that shared the same name as the fictional test target. In two other cases, Gemini located public repositories containing login credentials online and used them to access real companies’ services. Upon discovering the breaches involved actual businesses rather than test entities, the model ceased its activities in all three instances.
Google was informed of the breaches by Irregular at the end of July. Unlike competitors OpenAI and Anthropic, which publicly disclosed similar security incidents involving their own models, Google chose not to make a public announcement. The company justified this decision by stating the AI model caused no damage to the affected firms and that the companies involved were privately notified. Heather Adkins, Google’s vice-president of security engineering, characterized the incidents as standard evaluation outcomes where the model gathered public information and attempted credential guessing before halting upon identifying actual targets.
The series of breaches across multiple AI developers has drawn scrutiny from policymakers. Independent senator Bernie Sanders called for a moratorium on model development following the disclosures from OpenAI and Anthropic, expressing concerns about companies’ ability to control their systems. OpenAI subsequently paused development work for two weeks, while Anthropic’s CEO advocated for a broader industry-wide slowdown to ensure advanced models include adequate safety measures.
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