Google to scale up AI-powered fraud detection and security operations in India

Google has unveiled its security charter in India, which will expand its developments led by AI for the detection of fraud and the fight against scams across the country, the largest market in society outside the United States.

Digital fraud in India increases. Fraud linked to the instant payment system of the UPI Indian government increased by 85% in annual shift At almost 11 billion Indian rupees ($ 127 million) last year, according to government data. India has also seen several cases of digital arrest items, where fraudsters arise as managers to extort money via video calls and predatory loan applications.

With its security charter, Google aims to approach some of these areas. The company also launched its security engineering center In India, its fourth center after Dublin, Munich and Malaga.

Announced at the Google for India summit last year, the Security Engineering Center (GSEC) will allow Google to associate with the local community, including the government, the academic world and the students, and small and medium -sized enterprises to create solutions to resolve cybersecurity, confidentiality, security and AI problems, said Google VP engineering. In an interview with Techcrunch.

Google has teamed up with the Indian Coordination Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (I4C) to educate cybercrimes, said the company in a blog article. This is based on the existing work of the company, including the launch of its online fraud identification program, DigikavachWho made his debut in 2023 to restrict the harmful effects of malicious financial applications and predatory loan applications.

With its GSEC in India, Google will focus on three key areas, Adkins at Techcrunch told the phenomenon of online scams and fraud and how people are online; cybersecurity of companies, government and critical infrastructure; And build an AI responsible.

“These three areas will be part of our security charter for India, and in the coming years … We want to use the fact that we have an engineering capacity here to resolve for what is happening in India, near where users are,” said Adkins.

Globally, Google uses AI to combat online scams and delete millions of announcements and announcements. The company aims to deploy AI more broadly in India to combat digital fraud.

Google Messages, which is preinstalled on many Android devices, uses scam detection powered by AI that has helped protect users against more than 500 million suspicious messages per month. Likewise, Google Piloted his game Protect In India, last year, which, according to him, blocked nearly 60 million attempts to install high -risk applications, which led to stopping more than 220,000 unique applications on more than 13 million aircraft. Google Pay, which is One of the payment applications based on UPI In the country, also shown 41 million warnings against transactions suspected of being potential scams.

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Adkins, a founding member of the Google security team that has been part of the Internet company for over 23 years, has discussed several other subjects during an interview with Techcrunch:

Adkins said that a thing in mind is the use and the abusive use of AI by malicious actors.

“We obviously follow the AI ​​very closely, and so far, we have mainly seen the major language models such as Gemini used as improvements in productivity. For example, to make phishing scams a little more effective – especially if the actor and the target have different languages ​​- they can use the translation benefit to make the scams more credible using deep buttocks, videos, etc., “said Adkins.

Adkins said Google performs in -depth tests of its AI models to make sure they understand what they should not do.

“This is important for the generated content that could be harmful, but also actions that could take,” said Akins.

Google works on frameworks, including Secure AI frameworkTo restrict the abuse of his Gemini models. However, to protect the generating AI against the improper use and mistreatment of pirates in the future, the company sees the need for a framework to establish the security of the way in which several agents communicate.

“The industry moves very, very quickly [by] Put the protocols outside. It’s almost like the first days of the Internet, when everyone publishes code in real time, and we are thinking of security after the fact, “said Adkins.

Google does not want to simply introduce its own frames to limit the scope of generative AI abused by pirates. Instead, Adkins said that the company was working with the research community and the developers.

“One of the things you don’t want to do is forced you too much in the first days of research,” said Adkins.

On surveillance sellers

In addition to the potential for mistreatment of the AI ​​generating by pirates, Adkins considers commercial supervisors as a significant threat. These may include manufacturers of spy software, including NSO groupwho is Sadly famous for his spy software from Pegasusor other small businesses selling surveillance tools.

“These are companies touring the world, and they develop and manufacture and sell a platform for hacking,” said Adkins. “You could pay $ 20, you could pay $ 200,000, depending on the sophistication of the platform, and this allows you to set up attacks by any expertise by yourself.”

Some of these sellers also sell their tools to Spy people on the markets, including India. However, in addition to being targeted by surveillance tools, the country has its own unique challenges in part at its size. The country not only sees deep frauds Digital arrestsWhat Adkins underlines are only regular scams adapted to the digital world.

“You can see how fast the actors of the threat themselves progress … I love studying the cyber in this region because of this. It is often an indication of what we will see all over the world at a given time,” said Adkins.

On multi-fateur authentication

Google has long encouraged its users to use more secure authentication methods beyond passwords to protect their online presence. The company has activated Multi-Factory Authentication (MFA) for all user accounts in the past, and also promotes the safety keys based on equipment, which Adkins mentioned by pointing its employees using their laptops. Without password is also Become a popular technological termWith various meanings.

Nevertheless, expect people to abandon passwords in a market like India is difficult because of its vast demography and its vast economic landscape.

“We knew for a very long time that passwords were not secure. This concept of multi-factory authentication was a step forward,” said Adkins, adding that Indians probably promote SMS authentication compared to other MFA options.