Snyk acquires Invariant Labs to boost AI-native app security
Invariant Labs, known for its work in shaping security standards for agentic AI, will now become part of Snyk, integrating its research and technologies with Snyk's recently launched AI Trust Platform. The acquisition marks Snyk's twelfth to date and brings with it a new research and development function, Snyk Labs, to advance security for emerging AI risks.
AI security integration
Peter McKay, Chief Executive Officer at Snyk, commented on the impact of the acquisition: "This acquisition is an important integration into Snyk's recently launched AI Trust Platform that adds the ability to secure applications from emergent threats. Snyk can now offer customers a single platform to address both current application and agentic AI vulnerabilities."
According to Snyk, the technologies and approaches developed by Invariant Labs will be absorbed into Snyk Labs, concentrating efforts on research regarding AI security, especially in relation to large language models (LLMs), autonomous agents, and multi-component protocol (MCP) systems. Snyk Labs will serve as the company's new research arm, delivering capabilities through its AI Trust Platform by focusing on threats such as tool poisoning and MCP rug pulls.
With the rapid growth of AI-native software in enterprise settings, security teams are increasingly confronted with new and unfamiliar threats. Snyk's acquisition of Invariant Labs aims to provide consolidated tools and intelligence, equipping customers to manage risks associated with agent-based systems in real-time production environments.
Responding to evolving risks
Snyk emphasised that the integration will allow security professionals to secure not only established applications, but also the emerging generation of AI-native and agentic software that is seeing widespread adoption. This dual focus is intended to support companies dealing with risks such as unauthorised data exfiltration, agent actions beyond the intended scope, and MCP vulnerabilities.
At the forefront of research on new AI risks, Invariant Labs has played a key role in identifying and naming novel attack types, including terms like "tool poisoning" and "MCP rug pulls," which are already being observed in live deployments. "With Invariant Labs, we're accelerating our ability to identify, prioritize, and neutralize the next generation of Agentic AI threats before they reach production," said Manoj Nair, Chief Innovation Officer at Snyk. "This acquisition also underscores Snyk's proactive commitment to supporting security teams navigating the urgent and unfamiliar risks of AI-native software, which is rapidly becoming the new software development default."
Technology and research
Invariant Labs is known for developing Guardrails, a transparent security layer for LLMs and AI agents. Guardrails enables developers to implement security controls, observe system behaviours in context, and enforce policies based on a combination of static and runtime data, human review, and incident logs. These features are designed to help developers scan for vulnerabilities and monitor agent compliance with security standards.
Marc Fischer, PhD, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Invariant Labs, commented on the direction of the merged teams: "We've spent years researching and building the frameworks necessary to secure the AI-native future. We must understand that agent-based AI systems are a powerful new class of software, especially autonomous ones, and demand greater oversight and stronger security guarantees than traditional approaches. We're excited to join the Snyk team, as this mindset is deeply aligned with their mission."
The collaboration is expected to further embed Invariant Labs' research-driven approach into Snyk's product offerings, supporting organisations with real-time defences against current and emerging AI threats.
As AI adoption continues to rise, this acquisition highlights steps being taken within the cybersecurity sector to address vulnerabilities inherent to autonomous, agent-based, and AI-native systems already in use across industry.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Techday NZ
6 hours ago
- Techday NZ
LambdaTest debuts AI tool platform for rapid validation
LambdaTest has announced the private beta launch of its Agent-to-Agent Testing platform, developed to validate and assess AI agents. The platform is targeting enterprises that increasingly deploy AI agents to support customer experiences and operations, as organisations seek reliable automated tools designed to handle the complex nature of AI-powered systems. Need for new testing approaches AI agents interact dynamically with both users and systems, resulting in unpredictability that challenges traditional software testing methods. Ensuring reliability and performance in these contexts has proven difficult, particularly as conventional testing tools fall short when the behaviour of AI systems cannot be easily anticipated in advance. LambdaTest's Agent-to-Agent Testing aims to address these challenges by using a multi-agent system that leverages large language models for rigorous evaluation. The platform is designed to facilitate the validation of areas such as conversation flows, intent recognition, tone consistency and complex reasoning in AI agents. Multi-modal analysis and broader coverage Teams using the platform can upload requirement documents in various formats, including text, images, audio, and video. The system performs multi-modal analysis to automatically generate test scenarios, aiming to simulate real-world circumstances that could pose challenges for the AI agent under test. Each generated scenario includes validation criteria and expected responses. These are evaluated within HyperExecute, LambdaTest's test orchestration cloud, which reportedly delivers up to 70% faster test execution when compared to standard automation grids. The platform also tracks metrics such as bias, completeness, and hallucinations, enabling teams to assess the overall quality of AI agent performance. Integration of agentic AI and GenAI Agent-to-Agent Testing incorporates both agentic AI and generative AI technologies to generate real-world scenarios, such as verification of personality tone in agents and data privacy considerations. The system executes these test cases with the goal of providing more diverse and extensive coverage compared to existing tools. Unlike single-agent systems, LambdaTest's approach employs multiple large language models. These support deeper reasoning and the generation of more comprehensive test suites, aiming for detailed validation of various AI application behaviours. "Every AI agent you deploy is unique, and that's both its greatest strength and its biggest risk! As AI applications become more complex, traditional testing approaches simply can't keep up with the dynamic nature of AI agents. Our Agent-to-Agent Testing platform thinks like a real user, generating smart, context-aware test scenarios that mimic real-world situations your AI might struggle with. Each test comes with clear validation checkpoints and the responses we'd expect to see," said Asad Khan, CEO and Co-Founder at LambdaTest. Impacts on testing speed and team resources LambdaTest says that businesses adopting Agent-to-Agent Testing will benefit from more rapid test creation, improved evaluation of AI agents, and decreased testing cycles. The company reports a five to ten-fold increase in test coverage through the platform's multi-agent system, providing a more detailed picture of how AI agents perform in practice. Integration with the HyperExecute system is designed to offer development teams fast feedback from test results, helping to reduce the interval between testing and product iteration. Automated processes also aim to reduce the reliance on manual quality assurance, with implications for cost efficiencies. The platform includes 15 different AI testing agents, covering areas such as security research and compliance validation. LambdaTest states that this is intended to ensure deployed AI agents meet requirements for robustness, security and reliability. The company's Agent-to-Agent Testing technology reflects ongoing efforts within the software testing sector to cope with the dynamic and evolving risks introduced by the increasing use of AI in business-critical systems.
RNZ News
13 hours ago
- RNZ News
Book Critic: The implications of AI on writing
Pip Adam has been reading and thinking a lot about how AI could affect writing. She shares books that offer insights to AI and that show how important human writers are. Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI - Karen Hao Blame it on the Rain (no more poetry 2025) - Hana Pera Aoake Show you're working out - Liz Breslin Hana Pera Aoake Photo: Supplied
1News
14 hours ago
- 1News
Dissolving the nuclear taboo would benefit NZ hugely – but do we have the guts?
OPINION: The AI future will require unprecedented amounts of power, and embracing nuclear energy is an obvious, clean solution that could boost the NZ economy for generations. But do we have a leader with the courage? By Thomas Scrimgeour Artificial Intelligence is transforming our world, though not in the way most people imagine. While the knowledge industry revolution is still around the corner, the warehouse-sized computers driving this innovation can't be built fast enough. Data centres already consume roughly 2% of global electricity, which is more than 10 times New Zealand's annual generation, and this figure is projected to double by 2026. The COL4 AI-ready data centre, on a seven-acre campus, Columbus, Ohio. COL4 spans 256,000 square feet with 50 MW of power across three data halls. (Source: Getty) ADVERTISEMENT Elon Musk's xAI recently built the world's largest supercomputer, 'Colossus,' in 122 days. They then doubled its size in just 92. It now requires the power of a small city to operate, and xAI is turning to non-renewables to supply this insatiable need. Around the world, AI's energy demands are rising faster than clean energy capacity can keep up. In Northern Virginia, a major data centre hub, AI-driven power use is expected to triple by 2029, while clean energy capacity will only double. An opportunity for New Zealand This problem is our opportunity. Countries able to deliver clean, reliable, and affordable energy will be best placed to attract billions in data centre investment. The good news is that we already have a distinct competitive advantage. Nearly 90% of New Zealand's electricity generation is renewable, our temperate climate lowers cooling costs, and we're politically stable with strong privacy protections. The sales pitch writes itself. Global hyperscalers have already noticed. Microsoft has invested $1 billion in New Zealand data centres, and Amazon Web Services plans to spend $7.5 billion on their new data centre in northwest Auckland. But here's the hitch: we might have what the world wants, but we don't have enough of it. ADVERTISEMENT Manapōuri hydro power station (Source: Meridian) Hydroelectricity is great, but we're not about to dam another river. Wind and solar are neat, but in midwinter they contribute very little. When renewables fall short, coal and gas fire up, bringing last winter's power price headlines back to haunt us. We need more generation and innovation. The big four power companies, known as gentailers, both produce and sell electricity to consumers. They aren't investing enough in new generation and critics argue the market incentives aren't there to expand capacity. Paul Fuge from Consumer NZ site Powerswitch puts it bluntly: 'the results we're seeing aren't what you'd expect from a thriving competitive market.' Market reform could help. But the real opportunity lies in increasing power production. The morning's headlines in 90 seconds, including Zelensky's suit becomes hot topic at peace summit, a cold blast on the way, and Auckland FC lures new signing back home. (Source: 1News) Conventional geothermal is our best near-term lever. It already supplies nearly 20% of our electricity and operates 24/7, unlike weather-dependent renewable energy. The best estimates suggest that we have enough active geothermal zones to double our output. I believe supercritical geothermal is the natural next step. It involves drilling five kilometres into the Earth's crust to unlock ten times the power of conventional geothermal. However, supercritical geothermal still faces significant technological hurdles. Commercialisation isn't expected until the late 2030s, and it's unclear how quickly it could scale. ADVERTISEMENT So we need a second pillar of clean energy generation, which brings us to the last swear word in New Zealand politics. Nuclear. (I can already smell the uranium.) David Lange at the Oxford Union debate on nuclear weapons,1985, where the then prime minister quipped to his American opponent that he could 'smell the uranium' on his breath. (Source: TVNZ) Can we turn around the taboo? It's only a strange quirk of history that nuclear power is controversial in New Zealand. It got bundled together with the protest backlash of the 1980s, and we've never quite moved on. The 1978 New Zealand Royal Commission on Nuclear Power was expecting a 'significant nuclear power program in the early part of next century.' Better late than never, I suppose. Although traditional nuclear power is brilliant, high upfront costs and a long build time put it in the too-hard basket, especially given New Zealand's basic revulsion. But nuclear technology is rapidly evolving. Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), one-tenth the size of conventional plants, are on the horizon and could be installed in a fraction of the time. A bold government could break the nuclear taboo in a single term. ADVERTISEMENT The Americans want SMRs by the end of the decade. One company, NuScale, already has regulatory approval. Canada will build four 300-megawatt reactors by the mid-2030s, and Japan is reversing plans to decommission its nuclear power plants. All we need is a leader with the courage to take the first step. A feasibility study to work out the who, when, and where of SMRs could be started today. The first politician to raise the issue will take some heat, but Kiwi voters will reward conviction and enjoy the benefits for generations. Energy abundance is the foundation of every productive economy, and the only road to lasting prosperity. We have the chance to do two big, good things: create a data centre industry for New Zealand and generate enough power to bring down costs for everyday Kiwis. But opportunities like this don't wait around. The time to act is now. Thomas Scrimgeour is a reasearcher at the Maxim Institute, an independent think tank based in Auckland.
