Google Warns LLMjacking Attacks Are Costing Some Enterprises Up to $1 Million in Cloud Charges
Nov 03, 2026
Cloud Security / Artificial Intelligence
Google on Monday warned that threat actors are hijacking enterprise access to Large Language Models (LLMs) to fraudulently leverage expensive computing resources and AI services. The tactic is called LLMjacking , a form of resource hijacking adapted for the LLM era, where an attacker obtains an API key through phishing, source code leaks, misconfigured environments, or exposed client-side code to gain unauthorized access to an organization's LLM accounts, while the legitimate owner covers the consumption costs. Such attacks have a wide geographical footprint, with impacted entities located in North America, South America, and Asia Pacific across the financial services, retail, technology, and transportation sectors. "Unlike the gradual resource consumption associated with cryptojacking, LLMJacking can generate large spikes in fraudulent cloud charges in a matter of hours," Google Threat Intelligence Group and Mandiant said in a report shared with The Hacker News...