Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing both enterprise technology and the cybersecurity landscape, creating new challenges around AI agents, plugins, skills and the attacks that can be generated with increasingly capable models. Against that backdrop, cybersecurity company Upwind has acquired AI security startup Aegis and launched Upwind AI Security Labs, as first reported by Axios.

The initiative brings Aegis co-founders Omri Limor and Saar Ankonina into Upwind, where they will lead a research and engineering effort focused on advancing security capabilities for AI-powered attacks. The move also expands Upwind’s existing focus on securing cloud and AI environments.

Bringing Aegis Into Upwind

Aegis was founded by Limor and Ankonina, two entrepreneurs and 8200 alumni who began their careers together in the intelligence unit, which focuses on offensive cybersecurity. The founders worked alongside one another during their time there, later serving in a commander-subordinate relationship before eventually becoming peers again.

After leaving the unit, the pair launched Aegis to address security challenges emerging around AI infrastructure. Its work focused on protecting against sophisticated AI-generated attacks, including autonomous exploitation pipelines and large-scale credential harvesting that can reduce the traditional skill and expertise barriers associated with cyberattacks.

Aegis initially approached Upwind for strategic partnership and investment as it developed its technology. After several months of working together, the relationship progressed into an acquisition, bringing the Aegis team and technology into Upwind.

“AI security is developing extremely quickly, and by acquiring Aegis and bringing Omri and Saar on board, we are building a team that can move just as quickly,” said Amiram Shachar, CEO and Co-Founder at Upwind. “The Aegis team brings a deep understanding of the challenges around securing agents, skills, and plugins, and by combining that expertise with Upwind’s existing platform, we can move from research to real-world security capabilities much faster.”

A New Focus On AI Security

Upwind AI Security Labs will work across areas including scanning, attack detection and AI security capabilities. The initiative combines Aegis’s technology and development work with Upwind’s existing runtime platform, with the stated goal of accelerating the transition from emerging AI security research to enterprise-grade capabilities.

The focus comes as organizations increasingly deploy AI agents and AI-powered workflows. These systems can interact with applications, access information and execute tasks, while skills and plugins can expand their capabilities while also introducing additional components that require security controls.

Recent industry findings cited by Upwind have highlighted cases involving compromised API keys and session tokens being harvested at scale for malicious campaigns. In response, the new labs will place particular emphasis on secret scanning both in transit and at rest to help prevent unauthorized access across cloud and AI environments.

“We initially built Aegis as a startup to tackle the missing security layer around AI agents, skills and plugins,” said Omri Limor, Co-Founder of Aegis. “After spending several months working together with Upwind, it became clear that joining forces through an acquisition and establishing AI Security Labs inside Upwind would allow us to move much faster and combine our technology with the capabilities Upwind has already built.”

Saar Ankonina, Co-Founder of Aegis, said the integration provides a path to broader deployment.

“Integrating our technology directly into Upwind’s platform gives us an immediate path to scale,” added Saar Ankonina, Co-Founder of Aegis. “The establishment of AI Security Labs provides the ideal environment to accelerate research and protect enterprise AI workflows.”

Expanding The Research Team

The newly established labs currently include 12 developers and researchers drawn from Aegis and Upwind. The company plans to expand the group significantly over the coming months.

According to Upwind, the team is expected to reach approximately 25 people within three months, with the potential to grow to 35 as the initiative develops. The expansion is intended to give the labs greater capacity to investigate emerging AI security risks and translate that work into new capabilities.

“We built AI Security Labs on the foundation of the Aegis acquisition with the ambition to create a significant research and engineering capability within Upwind,” said Shachar. “We expect the team to grow from 12 people today to 25 and potentially 35 in the coming months, allowing us to expand our research and accelerate the development of new AI security capabilities.”

Shortening The Research-to-Market Cycle

For cybersecurity companies operating in the AI era, identifying new attack techniques is only part of the challenge. Turning that research into practical defenses quickly is becoming increasingly important as AI capabilities evolve.

Upwind says AI Security Labs is designed around that transition, combining Aegis’s team and technology with Upwind’s market strategy and existing platform. The objective is to shorten the path between identifying emerging AI security risks and developing and delivering capabilities designed to address them.

“As AI transforms both the threat landscape and the speed of modern cyber operations, this is the ideal moment to build, innovate, and lead in cloud and AI security,” added Shachar. “With AI Security Labs, Upwind is reinforcing its mission to protect modern enterprise infrastructure and ensure organizations can safely embrace the next era of AI innovation.”

**This story was published on HackerNoon under our Business Blogging Program