Cloud Security in the AI Era: Challenges and Opportunities for Organizations

We recently participated in Silicon’s Cloud & Security Leaders Event, where we delivered one of the opening presentations alongside industry leaders like Wiz and AWS. Our session focused on both the opportunities and challenges AI brings to cybersecurity, including potential security risks. We explored Google’s cybersecurity journey, Making Science’s implementation success stories, and essential considerations for organizations looking to elevate their cybersecurity infrastructure. Álvaro Verdeja, our COO of Cybersecurity, Cloud, AI, and Software, and Francisco Dalmau, Channel Account Manager at Google Cloud for Iberia and Italy, shared these insights.

The Google SecOps Journey – Operation Aurora

While Google’s consumer products are universally known, its cybersecurity portfolio remains less familiar to many. Francisco Dalmau highlighted how “everything started with Operation Aurora in 2009,” a significant cyberattack that targeted U.S. organizations. The attackers sought to access source code—the crown jewels of tech companies—by exploiting vulnerable hosts to move laterally through corporate networks and access unsecured source code repositories.

Operation Aurora taught Google that traditional perimeter-based security was inadequate for modern threats. This realization led to a complete security model redesign encompassing infrastructure architecture, software development, and operational practices. The result was Google’s zero-trust model, founded on the principle of “trust nothing, verify everything.” Thus, Google’s security model was born.

This led to Google now having a complete portfolio of security tools that compete with the most cutting-edge products in the market, Google SecOps, VirusTotal, and Google threat intelligence are some of these. All of them rely on the power of Google Cloud to possess unique capabilities in the market.

Making Science’s Implementation Excellence

As Google Premier partners and cybersecurity specialists, Making Science has spent over two years leveraging Google SecOps for comprehensive threat management. 

The solution combines two powerful components:

• SIEM: Enables comprehensive threat detection through multi-source data ingestion and alert creation
• SOAR: Automates manual processes through playbooks, allowing small security teams to manage enterprise-scale operations efficiently

Álvaro Verdeja noted, “We’ve tested these solutions internally to ensure optimal client protection.”Some of the incidents we manage automatically are information leaks, connections from unusual locations, report creation, or blocking and resetting of compromised users and credentials.

AI’s Role in Cybersecurity

While the buzzword right now is Artificial Intelligence, Google also has its own, Gemini, which comes incorporated into its security products and was defined by Francisco Dalmau in the following way:

While the buzzword right now is Artificial Intelligence, Google’s Gemini AI, integrated into its security products, represents the next evolution in cybersecurity. Francisco Dalmau offered an illuminating metaphor: “Gemini is an assistant that when you’re looking at a window, and the one next to it is the same, tells you that the same thing might happen again and by the way, we should also check the doors in case any are open.” This is a very apt metaphor for me since, as always mentioned, one of the biggest problems currently is the lack of talent and investment. With Gemini, we have that help, that assistance that guides us, but also works for us, creating queries without knowing the language or playbooks to automate tasks.

This AI-driven approach enables automation of Level 1 security operations, allowing teams to focus on complex challenges while reducing manual tasks like false positive management in traditional SOC environments.

Key Recommendations

The session concluded with three essential insights for business security:

1. View cybersecurity as an investment, not an expense – major organizations have failed due to security breaches
2. Rely on professional expertise – avoid compromising security with inadequate implementation
3. Embrace zero trust and least privilege principles – verify everything and minimize access permissions

Ready to Transform Your Security Infrastructure?

Connect with Making Science’s cybersecurity experts to explore how we can enhance your organization’s security posture with Google Cloud’s advanced solutions.