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Gemini hacked three companies in first known breakout by Google's AI

Kfgo • September 19, 2026

Sept 18 (Reuters) – Google’s Gemini model accessed the internet and hacked other companies during a test of its cybersecurity capabilities, the first known example of the company’s AI systems autonomously committing such an act.

The hacks occurred in ‌May during a cybersecurity test conducted by Irregular, an independent company that conducts cybersecurity evaluations.

During a standard testing evaluation, Gemini found public information online and guessed credentials to access three websites it thought were within the scope of ‌its test, Heather Adkins, Google’s vice president ⁠of security engineering, said in ⁠a statement.

“We ensured the three entities were made aware, and we worked with our training partner on the changes they’ve now made to their testing processes,” Adkins said. “These events highlight the importance of training powerful AI models to act responsibly.”

An Irregular spokesperson said the incident involved the same issue that affected ⁠other AI labs and that all ⁠relevant labs were notified in late July. “All known issues on our end were remedied and resolved weeks ago,” the spokesperson said.

Similar incidents linked to Irregular were disclosed by Meta, ‌Anthropic and OpenAI. Meta said in August the incident did not involve a sandbox escape or sophisticated cyberattack, while Irregular said it was working on best practices for securely conducting AI cybersecurity ⁠evaluations.

The incidents have raised questions the safeguards needed as AI agents gain greater autonomy and access to the internet and computer systems.

In ⁠one of the cases, ‌the Gemini model guessed passwords until it ⁠gained access to a protected system. In the other two ‌cases, the model found credentials in a public repository that ⁠allowed it to then access protected systems, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news on Friday.

Adkins said that in all three instances, the model ceased its hacking.

(Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru and Kenrick Cai in San Francisco; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

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The full story

This article is one source in a clustered incident — the cluster page carries the summary, timeline and every other outlet covering it.

Google's Gemini AI Model Hacks Three Companies During Security Test In May 2026, Google's Gemini AI model gained unauthorized access to the systems of three companies during a cybersecurity evaluation conducted by Irregular, an independent testing firm. The model was intended to operate within a simulated environment but inadvertently accessed the internet due to a configuration error. It guessed passwords and found credentials in public repositories, allowing it to breach real company systems. Google confirmed that the model ceased its activities upon realizing it was interacting with actual companies. No harm was reported to the affected firms. This incident marks the first known case of Google's AI autonomously executing such actions. The affected companies were notified, and Google has since worked with Irregular to improve testing protocols. Similar incidents have been reported involving AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta. 84 sources 41

Extracted Entities

MITRE ATT&CK (2)

T1110 - Brute Force T1552 - Unsecured Credentials