Cybersecurity company Barracuda Networks Inc. today launched Barracuda AI Data Security, a product that monitors and controls what company data employees feed into artificial intelligence tools.

The release goes after a control gap that opens when workers adopt chatbots faster than their employers can write rules for them. Barracuda is aiming the product at smaller companies and at the managed service providers that support them. Most governance tooling in the category is built for large enterprises, the company said, leaving those buyers with skill requirements they cannot meet.

Detection is handled by Barracuda IQ, and the product runs on the BarracudaONE platform with its default sensitive-data blocking active from deployment. ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and Gemini are among the services covered. Barracuda said the engine can apply policy across more than 1,300 generative AI services in all. Prebuilt detectors scan prompts and uploads for customer records, passwords, financial data and proprietary source code, holding them back before they reach an outside model.

Alongside the data blocking, the product screens the models themselves. The engine flags prompt injection and jailbreak attempts, along with hate speech and any topic an employer has ruled out. Barracuda said the detection is aligned to the OWASP Top 10 for large language model applications.

Every AI interaction lands in an audit log that exports in a single click for auditors and insurers. Policies can be written per team, per tool and per data type. Administrators work through firewall-style rule screens, and the company’s Bailey assistant walks them through writing custom rules. Managed service providers also get multitenant management across customer accounts and pricing bundled into their existing service packages.

“AI adoption is accelerating faster than most businesses can keep pace, creating one of the most urgent new security and compliance challenges organizations face today,” said Neal Bradbury, chief product officer at Barracuda. He described the launch as the first of several planned additions to the company’s AI security line.

Generative AI risk visibility arrived in BarracudaONE in March at no extra charge, bringing shadow AI detection, risk scoring and policy enforcement to existing customers. The new product carries the work further, into inspection of the data itself.

Barracuda released survey results today covering 2,000 IT and security decision-makers. Among chief information officers at companies with 500 to 1,000 employees, 49% said their teams lack the skills to secure and govern AI already in use. The figure across all respondents was 38%.

Geoff Turner, chief executive of managed service provider Elevate Technology Group, said that customer AI policy “only goes so far” and that his firm needs controls that are “simple, scalable and built for real-world environments.”

Barracuda AI Data Security becomes available in October. The product is included at no additional cost in Barracuda SecureEdge Premium Access.

Photo: Barracuda