The security challenges surrounding artificial intelligence are moving beyond the models themselves. As AI agents gain the ability to interact with applications, access information and execute tasks, the infrastructure around those systems is becoming another area that companies need to secure. Upwind is responding by acquiring AI security startup Aegis and establishing Upwind AI Security Labs, as first reported by Axios.
The new labs will bring Aegis co-founders Omri Limor and Saar Ankonina into Upwind, along with developers and researchers from both companies. Their work will center on emerging AI security risks, with a particular focus on scanning, attack detection and security capabilities for AI-powered attacks.
The initiative also extends Upwind’s existing work securing cloud and AI environments by combining Aegis’s technology with the company’s runtime platform.
Why AI Infrastructure Is Becoming a Security Concern
The expansion of AI-powered workflows is introducing more components into enterprise environments. AI agents can interact with applications and perform tasks, while skills and plugins can extend what those agents are capable of doing. Those additional capabilities also create components that organizations need to understand and protect.
Upwind AI Security Labs will investigate those emerging risks while developing capabilities intended to identify and address them. The company has also identified secret scanning as a key area of focus, including scanning both in transit and at rest.
That focus follows industry findings involving compromised API keys and session tokens being harvested at scale for malicious campaigns. Upwind says the labs will work on preventing unauthorized access across cloud and AI environments while continuing to research other emerging attack techniques.
The Aegis Team Behind the Initiative
The new operation is built around Aegis, which was founded by Limor and Ankonina after their careers in 8200, an intelligence unit focused on offensive cybersecurity. The two founders began their careers together and later worked in a commander-subordinate relationship before eventually becoming peers.
After leaving the unit, they launched Aegis to address security challenges in AI infrastructure. Its work included protection against sophisticated AI-generated attacks such as autonomous exploitation pipelines and large-scale credential harvesting.
The relationship with Upwind began when the Aegis founders approached the company about strategic partnership and investment. Several months of collaboration followed before the companies moved forward with the acquisition.
“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.”
From Startup Technology to Enterprise Capabilities
For Aegis, joining Upwind creates an opportunity to integrate its technology directly into a broader security platform. Limor said the acquisition gives the team a way to accelerate work that originally began as an independent startup.
“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.”
Ankonina similarly pointed to the potential to scale the technology through Upwind.
“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.”
A Research Operation Built to Grow
The labs currently include 12 developers and researchers from Aegis and Upwind, but the group is expected to expand considerably. Upwind plans to grow the team to approximately 25 people within the next three months, with the potential to reach 35 as the initiative develops.
That expansion is intended to increase the company’s research and engineering capacity while shortening the time between identifying emerging AI security risks and developing capabilities to address them.
“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.”
For Upwind, the acquisition ultimately ties research more closely to the company’s existing platform and market strategy. Shachar said the effort is intended to address both the changing threat landscape and the increasing speed of cyber operations as AI capabilities develop.
“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.”
