New cybersecurity center in Málaga will help build a safer Europe

We’re excited to open the Google Safety Engineering Center (GSEC) Málaga, a new cybersecurity hub on the Spanish coast that will advance the work we do to build a better, safer Internet.

With each passing week, cyber threats are growing more sophisticated, costly and aggressive—undermining the trust needed to create a vibrant, inclusive society. GSEC Málaga aims to be part of the solution, a place where we can collaborate with European experts, academics, businesses, and governments on best practices, share research and knowledge, and raise the security bar for all.

GSEC Málaga reflects Google’s commitment to European security and values. A broad range of Google teams and experts will come together to do what they do best: Develop and scale cutting-edge research and tools to combat increasingly sophisticated threats—built on a foundation of speed, open source and AI. GSEC Málaga joins two existing Google Safety Engineering Centers in Dublin and Munich. At these Centers, Google engineers don’t just talk about digital safety, they build it.

GSEC Málaga will be committed to helping others bolster their cybersecurity skills and protections, in line with our strong emphasis on open security principles. To that end, the center will feature a dedicated training space hosting personalized training workshops for government officials, businesses of all sizes, jobseekers, NGOs, and even local schools.

Google has already trained 12 million people across Europe in digital skills—and, as part of our commitment to increase the number of cybersecurity professionals across Europe, today we announced a $10 million pledge through Google.org to advance cybersecurity skills training and help local community organizations.

New research reveals how AI can help accelerate threat detection and mitigation

As technology becomes more sophisticated, so do the threats. That’s why at the launch event in Málaga today, we unveiled a new report by VirusTotal that details how AI can help us identify malicious code faster, with more accuracy, and for more people compared to traditional tools alone.

For example, malware is one of Europe’s largest cybersecurity threats, but malware analysis experts in Europe are in short supply, AI can help fill some gaps. Our report demonstrates how AI can work with traditional techniques to increase the speed and accuracy of malware detection—and give non-security experts the opportunity to spot and prevent threats without needing highly specialized knowledge or experience.

Our report also details how AI is capable of identifying malicious code in scripts with 70% more accuracy than traditional techniques alone. Researchers found that AI was up to 300% more accurate than traditional techniques at detecting attempts by malicious scripts to target a device with a common vulnerability or exploit.

By making cybersecurity more accessible to more people, AI can increase the protections for European organizations and businesses of all sizes.

Through collaboration at hubs like GSEC Málaga and by leveraging leading-edge technology like AI, we can fix and stop more threats, increasing trust in technology and making a safer, more secure ecosystem for all of us.