A steady stream of Google Cloud customers keep waking up to four- and five-figure Gemini API bills, racked up in hours by attackers who scraped Maps or Firebase keys from public code. Google has set a June 19, 2026 cutoff to block unrestricted keys from Gemini entirely. Here is what the recurring pattern looks like, and what to do this week.
Google spent a decade telling developers that Maps and Firebase API keys are not secrets. When Gemini was added to the Google Cloud Platform, those same keys silently gained the ability to make billable Gemini calls — and the bills started arriving. One team of three developers woke up to a $82,314 charge. The architectural fix is still pending.
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