AI · Google Cloud · February 25, 2026
$82,314.44 — a stolen Gemini key turned a small monthly bill into a bankruptcy threat in 48 hours
Vendor
Google Cloud
Service
Gemini API (Gemini 3 Pro Image + Text)
Amount
$82,314.44 (reported)
Timeframe
48 hours
Cause
Compromised API key
Outcome
Disputed
Who's exposed: Anyone using a Google API key with Gemini enabled and no per-API cap. Default keys are unrestricted, budgets only alert, and previously benign public keys (Maps, Firebase) can now authenticate to the Gemini API, so a leaked key bills with no ceiling.
Resolution: The poster was still liable when the thread was active. Google cited its Shared Responsibility Model and said there was no option but to pay, so the team pursued goodwill credits, kept escalating past first-line support, filed an FBI report, and moved their workloads to OpenRouter. Gemini's developer relations lead said a hard-caps experiment for the API was targeting a March 12 rollout, but a later commenter reported it had not shipped weeks after that date.
Self-reported by the poster with no billing screenshot, but the $82,314.44 figure was repeated across follow-up threads, covered by golem.de, and Gemini's developer relations lead responded publicly. r/googlecloud (by u/RatonVaquero)
What happened
Three developers in Mexico ran a small product on Google Cloud, spending about $180 a month. Between February 11 and 12 their API key was compromised. They never found how it leaked. In 48 hours it generated $82,314.44 in charges, almost all of it Gemini 3 Pro Image and Gemini 3 Pro Text calls, roughly 455 times their normal spend. They deleted the key, disabled the Gemini APIs, rotated credentials, turned on 2FA, locked down IAM, opened a support case, and filed an FBI cybercrime report. Charges kept climbing even after the key was deleted, because billing data lags usage. Their budget alerts had fired but never stopped anything. Google pointed to its Shared Responsibility Model and told them the charges stand. For a three-person team the bill was several times their bank balance, so paying it in full would end the company.
Root cause
Gemini API keys carry no per-API spending cap by default, and a GCP budget is an alert, not a hard stop, so nothing halts usage when spend spikes. Billing data also trails usage by hours, so abuse runs unchecked before it even shows on the dashboard. On top of that, a config change made previously benign public Google API keys able to authenticate to the Gemini API, widening the blast radius of any leaked key. A compromised key on pay-as-you-go could therefore be driven to a five-figure bill in two days with no ceiling to catch it.
How to avoid it
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Restrict every key to specific APIs and set quotas to zero for services you never call. Default keys are unrestricted, and a per-API quota is the only thing that throttles a stolen key before billing catches up.
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Poll the Cloud Billing API on a short cron and auto-revoke keys or detach billing past a threshold. GCP budget alerts notify but never stop spend, and usage data lags hours behind the actual charges.
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Route LLM traffic through a prepaid gateway or a separate low-limit billing entity. A prepaid balance caps your loss to what you loaded rather than exposing your whole card.
CostGoat watches your Google Cloud bills, so a surprise like this reaches you as an alert, not an invoice.
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