Google's AI has joined the "hackers' club": Gemini hacked into the systems of three companies

Google’s AI model, Gemini, gained access to the internet and hacked into the systems of three other companies during tests of its cybersecurity capabilities. Google confirmed the incident. This marks the first such incident involving the company’s artificial intelligence, following reports of similar incidents from other AI developers. Thus, Gemini has joined the “hackers’ club” alongside AI agents from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Meta, notes The Wall Street Journal.

According to Google, the incident occurred back in May. The company conducted tests of the AI model in collaboration with its security partner, Irregular—the same firm that had previously identified similar issues in the AI models and agents of Anthropic, OpenAI, and Meta.

In one instance, according to the company, Gemini brute-forced passwords until it gained access to a secure system. In two other instances, it discovered employee credentials in a public repository (a repository where developers collaboratively write, test, and store source code for algorithms and software), which then allowed it to gain access to secure systems. In each case, the model halted the intrusion after determining that it had gained access to the real company’s systems, Google reported.

The companies clarified that Irregular had been notified of the hacks as early as late July—after it became clear that OpenAI agents had hacked the Hugging Face platform. However, Google had not disclosed any information about the hacks until now—the company first told The Wall Street Journal about the incidents in response to questions on the matter, the newspaper notes.

This article is being updated

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor