back to article Google to Iran: Yes, we see you using Gemini for phishing and scripting. We're onto you

Google says it's spotted Chinese, Russian, Iranian, and North Korean government agents using its Gemini AI for nefarious purposes, with Tehran by far the most frequent naughty user out of the four. The web giant has been tracking the use of Gemini by these nations, using not just simple things presumably like IP addresses to …

  1. beast666 Silver badge

    "Google says it's spotted Chinese, Russian, Iranian, and North Korean government agents using its Gemini AI for nefarious purposes, with Tehran by far the most frequent naughty user out of the four."

    Cope harder Google, everyone is using Deepseek now.

  2. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    FAIL

    So, AI is not a gamechanger ?

    You might want to tune your violins properly.

    On the one hand, you are touting your AI thingamajig as the best thing since sliced bread, and now you're saying that it is not that good.

    Communication needs to be consistant.

  3. Falmari Silver badge

    Google to Iran: Thankyou for using our Gemini for phishing service

    "Google says" though "it's spotted Chinese, Russian, Iranian, and North Korean government agents using its Gemini AI for nefarious purposes" it will continue "tracking the use of Gemini by these nations", targeting ads that are relative to an agent's preferences.

    From the report it seems to me that Google log and stores all of Gemini AI's prompts not just ones that are caught by its guardrails, probably for every user.. The report links actions by a group to prompts answered by Gemini.

  4. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

    Good news. If anyone writes malware with this, at least we'll have access to the source code.

  5. Irongut Silver badge

    Pay attention AI users, Google just proved that everything you ask an AI - every prompt, every result text, etc - is monitored and logged.

    EVERYTHING

    1. CA Dave

      It's literally in the disclosure that it will save it to improve Gemini for 72 hours even if you don't choose to have it saved for longer. Don't be a muppet.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Downvote the above if you are a muppet that uses an AI to read the ToS for you and this fact made you feel personally attacked.

  6. VoiceOfTruth

    Does Google see America or Americans using Gemini for phishing?

    If not, it is turning a Nelsonian eye to its home turf.

    I must give Gemini a try. I will start by asking "which country does the most spying around the world".

  7. ChrisElvidge Silver badge

    Geofencing?

    "it's spotted Chinese, Russian, Iranian, and North Korean government agents using its Gemini AI for nefarious purposes"

    Well, geofence it.

    Some US sites have no problem restricting use from Europe/EU/UK citing GPDR or similar.

    1. beast666 Silver badge

      Re: Geofencing?

      Maybe Google are lying?

    2. doublelayer Silver badge

      Re: Geofencing?

      That wouldn't really help, since pretty much everybody doing malicious things with it have the ability to VPN out. Geofencing would just prevent the average user from using it. No great loss for either side, but it won't do anything to malicious uses. In my opinion, they shouldn't use their other profiling methods to block them either. I don't think the things they do with an LLM are very dangerous. Trying to block them might be more help than harm to them because it would teach them how to hide at the cost of a slight delay in getting useful phishing messages, which they can obtain from a lot of other sources anyway.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fix Required

    Quote: ".....Chinese spies have also been using it...."

    Correction needed: ".....Five Eyes spies have also been using it....".

    There....fixed!

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Looks like the oligarchs have been given the news that the US is off to war with Iran. Let's see how the meeting between the narcissist and the genocidal maniac goes.

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