Heather Adkins, Google\u2019s vice president of security engineering, said the company had informed the three affected entities and worked with Irregular to improve its testing procedures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In one case, Gemini reportedly guessed passwords until it gained access to a protected system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the other two cases, the model discovered credentials in a publicly accessible online repository and used them to access protected systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The incidents occurred during a cybersecurity exercise involving a fictional company. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the testing environment unintentionally allowed Gemini to reach the public internet, and the model encountered real companies while attempting to complete its assigned task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Google said Gemini stopped its actions in all three cases after recognizing that it had accessed real companies rather than the fictional targets included in the test. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The company also said the incidents did not cause harm to the affected organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Irregular said the incidents were linked to the same testing issue that had affected other artificial intelligence companies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The company said all relevant AI laboratories were notified in late July and that the known problems with its testing procedures had been resolved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Gemini incidents are part of a series of similar cybersecurity events involving AI models.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta, have also disclosed cases in which their AI systems reached real-world computer systems during security evaluations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The incidents have raised questions about how AI systems should be tested as they become increasingly capable of accessing the internet and interacting with computer systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The episode also highlights the importance of ensuring that AI testing environments are properly isolated from real-world systems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Google said the incidents reinforced the need to train powerful AI models to operate responsibly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Gemini stopped the intrusions once it recognized the systems belonged to real companies, the incidents demonstrate the challenges involved in controlling increasingly autonomous AI systems during cybersecurity testing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Google\u2019s Gemini artificial intelligence model accessed and hacked the systems of three real companies during a cybersecurity test in May, marking the first publicly known case of Google\u2019s AI autonomously carrying out such intrusions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":2000126407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[69],"byline":[201],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-2000126405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-technology","tag-homehighlights","byline-rania-umutoni"],"bylines":[{"id":201,"name":"Rania Umutoni","slug":"rania-umutoni","description":"","image":{"id":2000122457,"url":"https:\/\/cdn.igihe.com\/en\/2026\/08\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-08-14-at-12.00.00-PM.jpeg","title":"WhatsApp Image 2026-08-14 at 12.00.00 PM","mime_type":"image\/jpeg"},"user_id":139}],"contributors":[{"id":201,"name":"Rania Umutoni","slug":"rania-umutoni","description":"","image":{"id":2000122457,"url":"https:\/\/cdn.igihe.com\/en\/2026\/08\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-08-14-at-12.00.00-PM.jpeg","title":"WhatsApp Image 2026-08-14 at 12.00.00 PM","mime_type":"image\/jpeg"},"user_id":139}],"featured_image":{"id":2000126407,"url":"https:\/\/cdn.igihe.com\/en\/2026\/09\/getty_6aadd8fa7f-1789778170.webp","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/webp","width":1920,"height":1440,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/cdn.igihe.com\/en\/2026\/09\/getty_6aadd8fa7f-1789778170.webp","width":1920,"height":1440},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/cdn.igihe.com\/en\/2026\/09\/getty_6aadd8fa7f-1789778170.webp","width":1920,"height":1440},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/cdn.igihe.com\/en\/2026\/09\/getty_6aadd8fa7f-1789778170.webp","width":1920,"height":1440},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/cdn.igihe.com\/en\/2026\/09\/getty_6aadd8fa7f-1789778170.webp","width":1920,"height":1440},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/cdn.igihe.com\/en\/2026\/09\/getty_6aadd8fa7f-1789778170.webp","width":1920,"height":1440}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000126405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2000126405"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000126405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2000126447,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000126405\/revisions\/2000126447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000126407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2000126405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2000126405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2000126405"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=2000126405"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=2000126405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.igihe.com\/en\/2026\/09\/getty_6aadd8fa7f-1789778170.webp\")