Google wants to ‘make the internet safer’ with new research team

Google will deploy a team of security researchers to make the internet a safer place. Software from other companies is also examined. The project aims to reduce the number of ‘zero day’ security vulnerabilities.

The tech company announced the research project, dubbed Project Zero, earlier on Tuesday. “You should be able to use the Web without fear that criminals or governments will exploit bugs to infect your computer, steal secrets or monitor your communications,” writes Google security researcher Chris Evans.

The new team of security researchers will not be given a specific assignment, but the goal is to “strongly decrease” the number of people who are confronted with targeted, advanced attacks. “We hire the best security researchers and have them spend 100 percent of their time improving security on the Internet,” Evans said. It is not immediately clear what benefit Google itself thinks it can derive from the project.

The researchers will not only focus on Google software, but will also examine software from other companies. Security vulnerabilities are initially shared confidentially with the creator of the software, but are published in a database after they are closed. In addition, the new security experts must, among other things, look for new ways to circumvent security vulnerabilities. Google is still looking for researchers to join the team.

The team will mainly focus on targeted, advanced attacks on individuals. Zero day security vulnerabilities are often used for this: bugs that have not yet been fixed. “We see zero day vulnerabilities being used against human rights activists or for industrial espionage,” Evans writes. “This has got to stop. We think we can do more to fix this problem.”