Pluto Security raises $42M as AI gives enterprise security teams a new headache | TechCrunch

“In general, I’ll say there was not one POC in which we entered and didn’t find malicious stuff,” she said. “Whether those are extension packages or skills — some of them had active live attacks while we did the POC. Which again, for me, product-wise is amazing. For the companies, it’s not very good.”

Pluto’s entire bet is that securing such environments will require security tools to pay attention to what AI agents are doing in real time, in addition to keeping track of what and how employees are building and deploying.

“We’re moving from user behavior to agent behavior,” Bahat said.

In line with that vision, the startup’s software monitors the AI tools employees use, the skills, extensions, MCP servers, and other components those tools rely on, as well as the apps and agents being created. The company says it can identify risky components, spot potentially dangerous agent activity, and enforce security policies without stopping employees from using or making AI tools.

To do all that, Pluto connects to endpoint security and device management systems and can deploy its own sensors through them or directly onto devices. It gathers information, including prompts, commands, running processes, permissions, and users’ previous activity, and uses its own “lightweight” models on endpoints to help assess what an agent is trying to do.

What stood out is that Pluto’s system can intervene while an agent is working, Bahat said. If an agent tries to gain permissions beyond what a user intended, for example, the system can stop the action or add instructions into the session that prompt the agent to ask for confirmation.

“We can inject context back to the session, and this way I can change how the agent is working,” Bahat explained.

The startup also takes an unusual approach to finding customers. In April, it launched Plutonium, a free platform that lets anyone check risks associated with publicly available AI skills, connectors, and add-ons. There’s also an MCP scanner and a catalog of verified components. Bahat claims thousands of security professionals use Plutonium and that the community around it has become an important source of feedback and prospective customers.