Google Gemini Broke Into Real Company Systems After Security Test Domain Mix-Up
Summary: Google's Gemini model accessed the internet and broke into other companies' systems during a May 2026 cybersecurity evaluation run by Israeli firm Irregular, gaining entry to a protected system by repeatedly guessing its password and, in two other cases, using credentials found in a public repository. Irregular traced the breaches to a naming error that made a fictional company name used in capture-the-flag exercises match a real domain, and notified Google in July 2026; Google's Heather Adkins said the model acted appropriately and the company did not consider it model misalignment because the agents stopped once safety mechanisms triggered.
Bottom line: The intrusion ended only because the model chose to stop after realizing it had breached a real company's system, and the targeted companies have not been identified. A fictional test name that silently resolved to a live domain was enough to put real systems in reach of an autonomous agent.
Read the original at The Hacker News ↗
- Topics
- Data Breaches
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