Company: GOOGL
Filing Date: 2025-02-05
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001652044-25-000014
Chunk: 97

Company: Alphabet Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-05
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 97
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 other parties’ systems. We expect to continue to experience such incidents or vulnerabilities in the future. Our efforts to prevent security incidents and address undesirable activity on our platform may require us to spend additional resources to prepare and defend against such threats, and could also increase the risk of retaliatory attack. In addition, 

16.  

Table of ContentsAlphabet Inc.

we face the risk of cyber attacks by nation-states and state-sponsored actors. These attacks may target us or our customers, particularly our public sector customers (including federal, state, and local governments). Geopolitical tensions or armed conflicts, such as the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and Ukraine, may increase these risks. 

We may experience security and/or privacy issues, whether due to employee or insider error or malfeasance, system errors, or vulnerabilities in our or other parties’ systems. While we may not determine some of these issues to be material at the time they occur and may remedy them quickly, there is no guarantee that these issues will not ultimately result in significant legal, financial, and reputational harm, including government inquiries, enforcement actions, litigation, and negative publicity. There is also no guarantee that a series of related issues may not be determined to be material at a later date in the aggregate, even if they may not be material individually at the time of their occurrence. Because the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access to, disable or degrade service provided by or otherwise sabotage systems change frequently and often are recognized only after being launched against a target, even taking all reasonable precautions, including those required by law, we have been unable in the past and may continue to be unable to anticipate or detect attacks or vulnerabilities or implement adequate preventative measures. 

Further, if any partners with whom we share user or other customer information fail to implement adequate data-security practices, fail to comply with our terms and policies, or otherwise suffer a network or other security breach, our users’ data may be improperly accessed, used, or disclosed. If an actual or perceived breach of our or our business partners’ or service providers’ security occurs, the market perception of the effectiveness of our security measures would be harmed, we could lose users and customers, our trade secrets or those of our business partners may be compromised, and we may be exposed to significant legal and financial risks, including legal claims (which may include class-action litigation) and regulatory actions, fines, and penalties. Any of the foregoing consequences could harm our business, reputation, financial condition, and operating results. 

While we have dedicated significant resources to privacy