Google Says Gemini Accessed External Companies’ Systems During Cybersecurity Test

Google confirmed over the weekend that its Gemini artificial intelligence model gained unauthorized access to the systems of three external companies during a cybersecurity test conducted in May.

The incident is believed to be the first known case in which a Google AI model independently carried out such actions. It follows reports of similar incidents involving models developed by OpenAI and Anthropic.

According to The Wall Street Journal, whose report was later confirmed by Google, Gemini accessed the external systems after mistakenly identifying them as part of the controlled test environment.

“The model believed these systems were part of the test and stopped in each case before taking any further action,” said Heather Adkins, Google’s vice president of security engineering.

During the assessment, Gemini found publicly available information online and used it to guess login credentials for websites it believed were included in the exercise.