Google's Big Sleep AI Agent Foils Imminent SQLite Exploit, Marking Cybersecurity First

Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced on July 15 that the company's AI agent, Big Sleep, successfully detected and foiled an imminent cyber exploit, preventing a critical SQLite vulnerability (CVE-2025-6965) from being widely exploited. This achievement is being hailed as a significant milestone, potentially marking the first instance of an AI agent directly preventing a real-world vulnerability exploitation attempt.

"New from our security teams: Our AI agent Big Sleep helped us detect and foil an imminent exploit," Pichai stated on social media. "We believe this is a first for an AI agent - definitely not the last - giving cybersecurity defenders new tools to stop threats before they’re widespread."

Big Sleep, developed by Google DeepMind and Google Project Zero, was first announced last year as an AI agent designed to actively search for unknown security vulnerabilities in software. It had already demonstrated its capabilities by finding its first real-world security flaw in November 2024.

The recent success involved Big Sleep discovering the critical SQLite vulnerability, which was known only to threat actors and poised for exploitation. Google reported that the combination of Big Sleep's analysis and intelligence from Google Threat Intelligence allowed them to predict the imminent use of the vulnerability and neutralize the threat preemptively. This capability represents a shift from reactive threat detection to proactive interdiction in cybersecurity.

Beyond Big Sleep, Google is advancing its AI-driven security efforts, including extending Timesketch, its open-source digital forensics platform, with AI capabilities powered by Sec-Gemini to accelerate incident response. The company also highlights FACADE (Fast and Accurate Contextual Anomaly Detection), an AI-based system used for insider threat detection since 2018. These initiatives underscore Google's strategy to leverage AI to enhance cybersecurity defenses.

The deployment of AI agents like Big Sleep to secure widely used open-source projects signifies a broader impact on internet security. This development points to a future where AI plays an increasingly critical role in scaling cybersecurity efforts, freeing human security teams to focus on more complex threats and potentially ushering in a new era of AI-powered defense.