Google Cloud Vertex AI Allows Attacker to Hijack Victim’s Model and Poison it

Cybersecuritynews •Abinaya • June 17, 2026

A newly disclosed vulnerability in Google Cloud Vertex AI could have allowed attackers to hijack machine learning model uploads and execute malicious code in victim environments, according to research shared with Google under responsible disclosure. The issue affects the Vertex AI Python SDK (google-cloud-aiplatform) and stems from a combination of predictable cloud storage bucket naming […]

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Google Vertex AI SDK Vulnerability Enables Code Execution via Bucket Squatting A vulnerability in Google's Vertex AI SDK for Python allowed attackers to hijack machine learning model uploads and execute arbitrary code within Google's infrastructure. Discovered by Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42, the flaw, termed 'Pickle in the Middle,' exploited predictable bucket naming and a lack of ownership verification. Attackers could create a bucket with the same name as a victim's expected staging bucket, leading to model uploads being redirected to the attacker's bucket. This scenario allowed the attacker to replace the model with a malicious version during a narrow time window. The exploit could lead to remote code execution due to the use of Python's pickle serialization format. Google has patched the vulnerability in SDK versions 1.144.0 and 1.148.0, urging users to update. No active exploitation has been reported in the wild. 8 sources 65

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Google Cloud Vertex AI Allows Attacker to Hijack Victim’s Model and Poison it

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Attack Types (1)

CWE Weaknesses (1)

Platforms (1)