Upwind is expanding its push into AI security through the acquisition of startup Aegis and the creation of a new research initiative dedicated to emerging threats around AI-powered systems, as first reported by Axios.
The acquisition brings Aegis co-founders Omri Limor and Saar Ankonina into Upwind. The two will lead Upwind AI Security Labs, a new operation focused on developing security capabilities around AI-generated attacks and the expanding infrastructure used by AI agents and workflows.
The move comes as AI systems gain the ability to interact with applications, access information and execute tasks, creating security considerations beyond the underlying models themselves.
Aegis Joins Upwind
Limor and Ankonina founded Aegis after serving in 8200, where they began their careers together in offensive cybersecurity. Their relationship developed through several roles, including a commander-subordinate relationship, before the two became peers.
Aegis was created to address security challenges in AI infrastructure, with a focus on threats including autonomous exploitation pipelines and large-scale credential harvesting. According to Upwind, those types of AI-generated attacks can reduce traditional skill gaps associated with cyber operations.
The founders initially contacted Upwind about a strategic partnership and investment. After working together for several months, the companies moved forward with an acquisition.
The transaction gives Upwind access to Aegis’s technology and team while creating a dedicated group within the company for AI security research and development.
“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.”
Where the New Labs Will Focus
Upwind AI Security Labs will work across scanning, attack detection and other AI security capabilities. Its work will combine Aegis’s technology and development efforts with Upwind’s existing runtime platform.
A particular area of interest will be AI agents and the components that extend their functionality. Skills and plugins can introduce additional elements into AI-powered workflows, while agents themselves can interact with applications and execute tasks.
The labs will research the associated security risks and develop capabilities intended to detect and address them.
Secret scanning will also be an important component of the initiative. Upwind cited industry findings involving compromised API keys and session tokens being harvested at scale and said the labs will focus on scanning for secrets both in transit and at rest.
For Aegis, the acquisition changes the scale at which that work can be pursued.
“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 said Upwind’s platform provides a route for the technology to reach a larger enterprise audience.
“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.”
An AI Security Team With Room to Grow
The new labs currently have 12 developers and researchers from Aegis and Upwind. The company expects to grow that number to approximately 25 people within three months, with the potential to reach 35 as the initiative develops.
The expansion is intended to increase the group’s ability to research emerging threats and turn that work into new security 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.”
Building for the Next Stage of AI Adoption
Upwind’s strategy centers on shortening the time between identifying an emerging security risk and developing a practical capability to address it.
The company says combining Aegis’s technology and team with its own platform and market strategy will help accelerate that process as AI capabilities continue to evolve.
“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.”
