Google has announced a new service offering AI tools for providing online security. Google’s new open-source resources – which is called the AI Cyber Defense Initiative – the company is continuing an investment in an AI-ready infrastructure.
Google will also release new tools for defenders and launch new research and AI security training. These commitments are designed to help AI secure, empower, and advance the collective digital future.
This tool is already being used to protect Gmail and Google Drive users. And now it will be available for free. Google also released a white paper in conjunction with the announcement.
Through the AI Cyber Defense Initiative, we’re continuing our investment in an AI-ready infrastructure, releasing new tools for defenders, and launching new research and AI security training. These commitments are designed to help AI secure, empower, and advance our collective digital future.
There are three ways that Google is applying AI to security while supporting others.
1.) Secure – Google believes that AI security technologies must be secure by design and by default or they could further deepen the Defender’s Dilemma. And this is why Google started the Secure AI Framework as a vehicle to collaborate on best practices for securing AI systems. To build on these efforts to foster a more secure AI ecosystem.
Google continues to invest in its secure, AI-ready network of global data centers. Over the period 2019 to 2024, Google will have invested over $5 billion in data centers in Europe, helping support secure, reliable access to a range of digital services, including broad generative AI capabilities like our Vertex AI platform. Plus, Google is announcing a new “AI for Cybersecurity” cohort of 17 startups from the UK, US and EU under the Google for Startups Growth Academy’s AI for Cybersecurity Program. This will help strengthen the transatlantic cybersecurity ecosystem with internationalization strategies, AI tools, and the skills to use them.
2.) Empower – Societies need a balanced regulatory approach to AI usage and adoption to avoid a future where attackers can innovate, but defenders are unable. So we need targeted investments, partnerships between industry and government, and practical regulatory approaches to empower organizations to maximize the value of AI while limiting utility to adversaries.
To help give defenders the upper hand in this fight, Google is expanding the $15 million Google.org Cybersecurity Seminars Program to cover Europe, initially announced at GSEC Malaga last year. This program – including AI-focused modules – supports universities to train the next generation of cybersecurity experts from underserved communities. Google is also open-sourcing Magika, a new, AI-powered tool to aid defenders through file type identification, an essential part of detecting malware.
Magika is already used to help protect products, including Gmail, Drive, and Safe Browsing, and by the VirusTotal team to foster a safer digital environment. Magika outperforms conventional file identification methods, providing an overall 30% accuracy boost and up to 95% higher precision on traditionally hard-to-identify but potentially problematic content such as VBA, JavaScript, and Powershell.
3.) Advance – Google is committed to advancing research that helps generate breakthroughs in AI-powered security. To support this effort, Google is announcing $2 million in research grants and strategic partnerships that will help strengthen cybersecurity research initiatives using AI, including enhancing code verification, improving understanding of how AI can help with cyber offense and countermeasures for defense, and developing large language models that are more resilient to threats.
This funding will support researchers at institutions including The University of Chicago, Carnegie Mellon, and Stanford. And this builds on Google’s ongoing efforts to stimulate the cybersecurity ecosystem, including a $12 million commitment to the New York research system last year.
