All news with #google tag

Google Announces AP2: Protocol for Agent-Led Payments

🤖 Google introduced the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), an open standard developed with more than 60 payments and technology firms to enable secure, agent-initiated transactions across platforms. AP2 extends A2A and MCP, using cryptographically-signed Mandates and verifiable credentials to prove authorization, ensure authenticity, and provide a non-repudiable audit trail. The protocol supports cards, real-time bank transfers, and crypto.

Google for Startups Accelerator: AI First MENA & Turkey

🚀 Today Google announced 14 startups selected for the Google for Startups Accelerator: AI First program serving the Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey. The cohort addresses challenges across finance, real estate, healthcare, industrial safety, TradeTech, and education, and will receive targeted mentorship, technical training, and product and business support. Participants include Abwab.ai, COGNNA, Distichain, xBites, and Navatech, and the program emphasizes responsible AI to accelerate regional scaling and commercialization.

Fraudulent Account Created in Google's LERS Portal

🔒 Google has confirmed that a fraudulent account was created in its Law Enforcement Request System (LERS) and has been disabled. The company says no requests were made and no data was accessed. The claim was posted by a group calling itself Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters, which also alleged access to the FBI's eCheck system; the FBI declined to comment. The group has a history of high-profile Salesforce-related thefts and has publicly taunted law enforcement and security researchers.

Google: Fraudulent Account Created in Law Enforcement Portal

🔒 Google confirmed that a fraudulent account was created in its Law Enforcement Request System (LERS) portal and has been disabled. The company said no requests were made with the account and no data was accessed. The claim follows posts by a group calling itself "Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters", which also asserted access to the FBI's eCheck system. The actors have previously targeted Salesforce-related infrastructure and taunted security teams.

APAC Security Leaders on AI: CISO Community Takeaways

🤖 At the Google Cloud CISO Community event in Singapore, APAC security leaders highlighted accelerating investment in cybersecurity AI to scale operations and enable business outcomes. They emphasized priorities: getting AI implementation and governance right, securing the AI supply chain, and translating cyber risk into board-level impact. Practical wins noted include reduced investigation time, agentic SOC automation, and strengthened threat intelligence sharing.

Google releases XProf and Cloud Diagnostics XProf tools

🔧 Google has open-sourced XProf, an upgraded ML profiler, and published the Cloud Diagnostics XProf library to simplify profiling and optimizing models on xPUs. The release brings unified XLA-based profiling across JAX, PyTorch/XLA and TensorFlow/Keras, and supports programmatic and on-demand trace capture. The Cloud Diagnostics library packages dependencies, stores profiles in Google Cloud Storage for retention, provisions TensorBoard on VMs or GKE for faster loading, and produces shareable links for collaborative analysis with tunable machine types for performance.

AlloyDB on Axion C4A Instances Reaches General Availability

🚀 AlloyDB on Axion-powered C4A virtual machines is now generally available. AlloyDB on C4A offers substantial efficiency gains—up to 45% better price-performance versus N‑series VMs and up to 2× higher throughput versus Amazon Aurora on Graviton4—targeting transactional and data‑intensive workloads. C4A supports shapes from 1 to 72 vCPUs (including a new 48‑vCPU option and a cost‑effective 1‑vCPU/8GB shape for dev/sandbox). Deploy or upgrade C4A instances via the AlloyDB console in supported regions.

Five AI Use Cases CISOs Should Prioritize in 2025 and Beyond

🔒 Security leaders are balancing safe AI adoption with operational gains and focusing on five practical use cases where AI can improve security outcomes. Organizations are connecting LLMs to internal telemetry via standards like MCP, using agents and models such as Claude, Gemini and GPT-4o to automate threat hunting, translate technical metrics for executives, assess vendor and internal risk, and streamline Tier‑1 SOC work. Early deployments report time savings, clearer executive reporting and reduced analyst fatigue, but require robust guardrails, validation and feedback loops to ensure accuracy and trust.

Google Pixel 10 Adds C2PA Support for Media Provenance

📸 Google has added support for the C2PA Content Credentials standard to the Pixel Camera and Google Photos apps on the new Pixel 10, enabling tamper-evident provenance metadata for images, video, and audio. The Pixel Camera app achieved Assurance Level 2 in the C2PA Conformance Program, the highest mobile rating currently defined. Google says a combination of the Tensor G5, Titan M2 and Android hardware-backed features provides on-device signing keys, anonymous attestation, unique per-image certificates, and an offline time-stamping authority so provenance is verifiable, privacy-preserving, and usable even when the device is offline.

Conversational Commerce Agent on Vertex AI Released

🛒 Google Cloud announced general availability of the Conversational Commerce agent on Vertex AI, a shopping-focused conversational assistant designed to guide customers from intent to purchase. The agent uses Gemini to interpret complex queries, supports context retention across sessions and devices, and offers administrative controls to boost, bury, or restrict products. Albertsons Cos. reports increased basket size in early use. Onboarding is presented as quick with minimal development effort via the Vertex AI console.

Google Central Fleet: Carbon-Aware Data Center Model

🔁 Google describes its Central Fleet program as a centralized, fungible pool of compute, memory, and storage that replaces team-level machine procurement. Teams request intent-based quotas rather than specific servers, and the fleet uses software-level orchestration via Borg to allocate and reallocate resources dynamically. Google reports that in 2024 the program avoided procurement with an embodied impact of roughly 260,000 metric tons CO2e, highlighting reductions in e-waste, embodied carbon, and improved energy efficiency while promoting a circular-economy approach.

Pixel 10 Adds C2PA Content Credentials for Photos Now

📸 Google is integrating C2PA Content Credentials into the Pixel 10 camera and Google Photos to help users distinguish authentic, unaltered images from AI-generated or edited media. Every JPEG captured on Pixel 10 will automatically include signed provenance metadata, and Google Photos will attach updated credentials when images are edited so a verifiable edit history is preserved. The system works offline and relies on on-device cryptography (Titan M2, Android StrongBox, Android Key Attestation), one-time keys, and trusted timestamps to provide tamper-resistant provenance while protecting user privacy.

Pixel 10 Adds C2PA Content Credentials and Trusted Imaging

📷 Google announced Pixel 10 phones will embed C2PA Content Credentials in every photo captured by the native Pixel Camera and display verification in Google Photos. The Pixel Camera app achieved Assurance Level 2 by combining Tensor G5, the certified Titan M2 security chip, and Android hardware-backed attestation. A privacy-first model uses anonymous enrollment, a strict no-logging policy, and a one-time certificate-per-image strategy to prevent linking. Pixel 10 also supports an on-device trusted timestamping mechanism so credentials remain verifiable offline.

Google Cloud launches no-cost multicloud data transfer

🔁 Google Cloud has introduced Data Transfer Essentials, a no-cost service for EU and U.K. customers to move multicloud data between Google Cloud and other providers. Designed for in-parallel processing across multiple clouds, qualifying multicloud traffic is metered separately and billed at a zero charge while other traffic remains billed at existing Network Service Tier rates. Customers can opt in via a configuration guide to specify which traffic qualifies.

Agentic SOC Workshops: Practical AI for Security Teams

🛡️ The Agentic SOC Workshop is a complimentary, half-day event series from Google Cloud designed to help security professionals apply agentic AI and cloud-native threat intelligence to real-world operations. Attendees will participate in hands-on labs, a Capture the Flag challenge, and peer networking to learn how Gemini and Google Cloud tools can reduce alert fatigue and automate routine workflows. Sessions start in Los Angeles on Sept. 17 and Chicago on Sept. 19, with additional dates in October.

Partner-built AI Security Innovations on Google Cloud

🔒 Google Cloud and its partners announced a range of partner-built AI security solutions now available in the Google Cloud Marketplace. These integrations embed Gemini and Vertex AI into partner products — including CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, and others — to protect models, data, applications, and agents. The collaborations emphasize automated detection, incident response, DLP, identity protection, and agent monitoring to reduce mean time to detect and respond, helping customers adopt AI securely.

GPUGate campaign exploits Google Ads and GitHub mimicry

🔒 Arctic Wolf researchers uncovered a targeted campaign, GPUGate, that uses malicious GitHub Desktop installers promoted via Google Ads to distribute evasive malware. The attack leverages commit‑specific links and lookalike domains to mimic legitimate GitHub downloads and trick users, particularly IT personnel, into installing a large MSI payload. A GPU‑gated decryption routine keeps the malware dormant in virtualized or low‑power environments, while PowerShell execution with policy bypasses and scheduled‑task persistence provide elevated privileges and long‑term access.

Fortinet + AI: Next‑Gen Cloud Security and Protection

🔐 AI adoption in the cloud is accelerating, reshaping workloads and expanding attack surfaces while introducing new risks such as prompt injection, model manipulation, and data exfiltration. Fortinet recommends a layered defense built into the Fortinet Security Fabric, combining zero trust, segmentation, web/API protection, and cloud-native posture controls to secure AI infrastructure. Complementing those controls, AI-driven operations and correlation — exemplified by Gemini 2.5 Pro integrations — filter noise, correlate cross-platform logs, and surface prioritized, actionable recommendations. Together these measures reduce mean time to detect and respond and help contain threats before they spread.

BigQuery's CMETA: Column Metadata Index for Scale Performance

🔍 BigQuery's new Column Metadata (CMETA) index is an automated, highly scalable metadata index that improves query pruning and reduces compute for extremely large tables. CMETA stores snapshots of block- and column-level statistics and is maintained transparently by BigQuery with no user intervention. Early adopters report up to 60x faster queries and up to 10x lower slot usage for selective filters, particularly on clustered columns.

Google Gen AI Training and Certification for Veterans

🎖️ Google Public Sector is opening registration for a no-cost, three-week virtual program, Google Launchpad for Veterans, offering foundational generative AI training and a path to the Gen AI Leader certification. The Gen AI Leader training includes a two-day kickoff on November 13–14, optional exam prep sessions, and a complimentary exam voucher. Participants will learn core LLM concepts, how to navigate the AI ecosystem, and practical business applications using Gemini and NotebookLM to drive organizational transformation.