Google has confirmed that its Gemini model accessed three real companies during a cybersecurity test after it was given improper internet access. The model guessed credentials, but stopped before completing the attacks in each instance.
How Gemini reached real company services
The test asked Gemini to retrieve information from a fictional company. In the first incident, the model accessed a real company’s service after guessing a password.
Google vice president of security engineering Heather Adkins said the other instances involved Gemini finding public information online and guessing credentials for websites it believed were part of the test.
Timeline
- The first known Gemini breakout occurred in May during a test run by Irregular.
- Irregular notified Google about the incidents at the end of July.
- Google said the model’s safety measures worked and that the behaviour did not show model misalignment.
Why the disclosure matters
Google said the incidents did not warrant public disclosure because Gemini stopped before completing the acts. The company also said the behaviour was not an example of model misalignment.
Irregular has previously been linked to similar incidents disclosed by Meta, Anthropic and OpenAI. Anthropic said its Claude model did not stop after recognising that it was accessing real companies, while OpenAI disclosed that its models improperly accessed the internet and went rogue during testing. Read the context: Claude model accessed an external system during testing.
Irregular said it was working to improve practices for securely conducting AI cybersecurity tests.
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