Fortinet’s AI security focus gains Virtue

Fortinet is acquiring Virtue AI to bolster its 'security for AI' strategy, integrating Virtue's Guardian Agent platform into Fortinet's FortiAIGate to provide continuous AI assurance and protect AI systems from development through runtime. Financial terms were not disclosed, with Fortinet stating the amount is immaterial to its business. Fortinet CEO Ken Xie said the technology will help customers govern and protect AI systems throughout their lifecycle at enterprise scale.

Fortinet is acquiring Virtue AI in a move to bolster its “security for AI” strategy and focus on providing cybersecurity platforms for enterprise customers through its FortiGate offerings. Virtue AI offers its Guardian Agent platform to support cybersecurity needs from development through runtime, including AI runtime protection, automated AI validation, and security for autonomous AI systems. That platform offers agentic system red-teaming; agent protection, governance, and visibility; continuous AI validation; and real-time guardrails. Those services will be injected into Fortinet’s FortiAIGate platform https://www.sdxcentral.com/news/fortinet-fortifies-nvidia-relations-for-ai-security-and-sovereignty/ that is currently targeted at protecting large language models LLMs from prompt injections, data leakage, model poisoning, and excessive resource consumption. “Combined with coordinated enforcement and FortiGuard Labs threat intelligence, it will give organizations the confidence to secure AI systems throughout their life cycle,” Fortinet noted on the new combination. “AI is fundamentally changing enterprise computing, and security must evolve just as quickly,” Fortinet CEO Ken Xie added in a statement. “Virtue AI’s technology will advance our vision for continuous AI assurance, helping customers govern and protect AI systems throughout their lifecycle while operating them confidently at enterprise scale.” Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed, with Fortinet adding that the mysterious amount “is immaterial to Fortinet’s business.” Fortinet earlier this year inserted a handful of AI-focused updates https://www.sdxcentral.com/news/fortinet-fights-quantum-harvesting-and-shadow-ai-with-new-updates/ into its broader FortiOS security operations SecOps platform. This included its FortiView real-time visibility tool for tracking shadow AI use in the enterprise; new AI-aware app control for allowing approved generative AI tools while preventing risky actions which can expose sensitive data; operability for model context protocol MCP https://www.sdxcentral.com/sdx-explainers/what-is-the-model-context-protocol-mcp-the-definitive-guide-to-ais-new-integration-standard/ and agent-to-agent A2A https://www.sdxcentral.com/news/google-linux-foundation-push-open-standard-for-ai-agents/ agentic standards; improved data loss prevention DLP with optical character recognition OCR ; and various AI agents spanning the Fortinet Security Fabric.