Google’s Big Sleep AI agent has become the first-ever AI to proactively detect and prevent a cyberattack before it occurred

Google’s Big Sleep AI agent has become the first-ever AI to proactively detect and prevent a cyberattack before it occurred, marking a major milestone in cybersecurity.

Here is the key details:

• Incident: Recently, Big Sleep discovered and stopped the exploitation of a critical, previously unknown SQLite vulnerability (CVE-2025-6965) that was only known to threat actors and about to be exploited in the wild. Google attributes this as the first time an AI agent directly thwarted an attack in progress.
• How it works: Developed by Google DeepMind and Google Project Zero, Big Sleep uses a large language model to analyze vast amounts of code and threat intelligence, identifying hidden security flaws before hackers can exploit them. In this case, the AI combined intel clues from Google Threat Intelligence with its own automated analysis to predict the imminent use of this vulnerability and cut it off preemptively.
• Prior achievements: Since its 2024 launch, Big Sleep has found multiple real-world security vulnerabilities, accelerating AI-assisted vulnerability research and improving protection across Google’s ecosystem and key open-source projects.
• Impact: Google calls this a “game changer” in cybersecurity, shifting the paradigm from reactive patching after breaches to proactive prevention using AI. The tool frees human defenders to focus on higher-complexity threats by handling mundane or urgent vulnerability detection at scale and speed beyond human capability.
• Safety design: Google emphasizes that Big Sleep and other AI agents operate under strict security controls to avoid rogue actions. Their approach combines traditional software defenses with AI reasoning, maintaining human oversight, transparency, and privacy safeguards.

Significance:

• Big Sleep’s breakthrough represents a critical evolution in cybersecurity defense, where AI does not just assist with detection but acts autonomously to block exploits in real time — potentially preventing millions in damages from zero-day attacks and speeding up vulnerability fixes globally.
• In essence, Big Sleep is a digital watchdog that stays ahead of hackers, scanning codebases relentlessly and intervening just in time to protect users and infrastructure.
• This event marks an important step towards widespread deployment of autonomous agentic AI defenders in cybersecurity, enhancing digital safety on a planetary scale.