Google’s Cloud Next 2024 has drawn to a close but the news stories keep on coming. One that hasn’t surfaced, however, could well turn out to be the most important, at least from the user security perspective: the use of AI large language models to protect Gmail users from harm. I couldn’t attend Cloud Next this year, but my Google insiders have been keeping me informed of the most important updates nonetheless. And I’m glad they did. Otherwise, I might well have missed a major security update for Gmail and Google Drive users. The main problem being addressed is that generative AI has become so good so quickly that it has “dramatically lowered the barrier to attacks,” according to Google, which it admits has led to “a spike in higher quality phishing at scale.” As you might imagine, getting access to Gmail and Drive accounts is high on the attacker’s agenda, given the goldmine of readily actionable data they contain. The solution, Google says, was conceptually simple albeit technically challenging: “We built custom LLMs to help fight back.” First deployed in late 2023, these LLMs are now “yielding big results,” Google says. These custom LLMs are trained “on a diet of the latest, most terrible spam and phishing” content because what LLMs are uniquely good at is identifying semantically similar content. Given the large Google Workspace user base of 3 billion, “the results are very impactful—and the LLMs will only get better at this as we go,” a Google spokesperson says.
Full report : Google Confirms Major Gmail AI Security Update For 3 Billion Users.
