Google has opened its first Asia-Pacific cyberdefense hub in Tokyo as worries grow over cyber threats posed by hostile actors including China, according to Nikkei.
The new hub will promote research and information sharing between the government, companies, and universities in Japan, as well as serve as a base of cybersecurity experts in the region, Nikkei reported. According to the outlet, Google will invite engineers from India, Australia, South Korea, Japan, and elsewhere across Southeast Asia to work on responses to cyberattacks.
News of the cyberdefense hub comes just a day after a former Google engineer was arrested and charged in the US for allegedly stealing trade secrets about artificial intelligence while secretly working for two companies based in China. Separately, Google recently disclosed that it is seeing a “massive increase” in cyberattacks waged by China on Taiwan.
Growing cyber threats worldwide also means that Google has had to expand its cybersecurity footprint. In November, Google opened its third and largest cybersecurity center in Spain amid what it said were “more sophisticated, costly and aggressive” cyber threats.
Meanwhile, in a sign of the ever-evolving threat landscape, Google parent company Alphabet’s venture capital fund just invested $50 million in insider risk startup Dtex Systems, Axios reported this week. The CEO of Dtex, Marshall Heilman, is a veteran of Google Cloud’s Mandiant. Dtex uses machine learning to monitor employee behavior and spot malicious or suspicious activity, such as data theft and account hacking.