President

We leverage the strength of our global team, knowing we’re more powerful together. Read news about Gen's company activities and initiatives.

Security Evangelist at Gen

Company News

Gen has a family of trusted consumer brands that for decades have helped people stay safe in the digital world. We pride ourselves in the trust we’ve built with people around the world to navigate the latest technology safely and with confidence. And that’s exactly why we recently launched the Gen Agent Trust Hub – our trust layer for the agentic AI ecosystem.AI agents are no longer theoretical. They are here. They are editing files, installing packages, calling APIs, connecting to MCP servers, spawning sub-agents, persisting memory, and executing real workflows across environments. This shift from passive AI to autonomous execution fundamentally expands the attack surface.The Agent Trust Hub (ATH) exists to meet this moment. It is designed to provide continuous protection across the full lifecycle of an AI agent – from identity and verification to runtime enforcement. But security at this scale cannot rely on proprietary guardrails alone. It requires shared foundations the industry can build on.To help establish that foundation, we created the AI Agent Safety Standards by Gen to serve as a unified framework designed to bring consistency, portability, and accountability to agentic systems. This framework is currently built on two complementary pillars:<ul type="disc"><li data-list-item-id="e464ce0354d35c1a986c83945bc06b0cd">AI Agent Runtime Safety Standard (AARTS) – an open standard for runtime decision enforcement across agent hosts</li><li data-list-item-id="e4a7d4ceb7039019b7c2554401a8bb1c3">Skill IDs – a deterministic, content-addressable fingerprinting system for AI agent skills</li></ul>Together, they enable the ATH and the broader agentic AI community to enforce trust not just within one environment but across the broader agentic ecosystem. &nbsp;Let’s dig into the details.&nbsp;<h2>Pillar One: Standardizing Runtime Safety for AI Agents</h2><h3>AARTS</h3>AI agents operate across a fragmented ecosystem of IDEs, orchestrators, frameworks, and standalone applications. Each host defines its own lifecycle events, security hooks, and enforcement logic.This fragmentation creates blind spots. A security engine integrated into one host may lack context or control in another, even when the risks are identical.AARTS&nbsp;addresses this gap. It is not a product. It is a vendor-neutral contract that defines:<ul type="disc"><li data-list-item-id="e226fc797549b56b0ae0a537923fd79f6">Where security decisions can be made (hook points)</li><li data-list-item-id="e7566ceb595a0278da9453bbd84659578">What data is available for evaluation (data model)</li><li data-list-item-id="e637f36bcc4e8dcfac7321ad59230c1c1">How decisions are enforced (verdict semantics)</li></ul>Simply put:&nbsp; AARTS standardizes runtime security decision-making across agent hosts.<h3>The Architecture</h3>AARTS defines three cleanly separated roles:<ol><li data-list-item-id="e7a445b9a896b9b89299afa17ca58c69e">Host Runs the agent, emits lifecycle events, and enforces decisions.</li><li data-list-item-id="e989b722cd161ff069c924d70571cd6b7">Adapter Maps host-native events into a standardized AARTS schema.</li><li data-list-item-id="ed862f4398b4b82c3b52c721801728a9c">Security Engine Evaluates events and returns structured verdicts.</li></ol>This separation prevents superficial “checkbox security” while preserving portability. Hosts provide the right context at the right time. Engines make decisions without depending on host internals.In ATH, this architecture allows enforcement logic to remain portable while enabling hosts to integrate in a predictable way.<h3>Hook Points: Where Safety Happens</h3>AARTS v0.1 defines 19 hook points across the agent lifecycle, including:<ul type="disc"><li data-list-item-id="ec5255705352d810833f77d79b310a42d">PreToolUse — evaluate shell commands, file writes, web requests, package installs</li><li data-list-item-id="ee1ebbdf3e4522a59dedaa55c0305d903">PreLLMRequest — protect prompt integrity and instruction layering</li><li data-list-item-id="e10ef155bfe4c584afd7492da267796be">PreSkillLoad / PrePluginLoad — enforce supply chain controls</li><li data-list-item-id="ee6184f1048dfbf4ee3c0e62c2d3dff16">PreMCPConnect — treat MCP connections as trust boundaries</li><li data-list-item-id="ebc57267bf0e891e01f9daf277ced1a01">PreMemoryRead / PreMemoryWrite — protect persistent memory</li></ul>These hooks enable consistent policy enforcement regardless of whether an agent runs in an IDE, CLI, or orchestrator.Verdict Semantics: Allow, Deny, AskAARTS engines return structured verdicts:<ul type="disc"><li class="ck-list-marker-bold" data-list-item-id="e9615d2d55e251652e73363c052de0bd1">Allow</li><li class="ck-list-marker-bold" data-list-item-id="eb510a0ee27b0a853b90ff01cec91953d">Deny</li><li class="ck-list-marker-bold" data-list-item-id="ed6e8c58ce99af62dddbf6b530bc0c83c">Ask</li></ul>Each verdict includes severity, threat category, optional confidence scoring, and human-readable reasoning.Importantly, AARTS enforces deterministic behavior:<ul type="disc"><li data-list-item-id="edfce7cb3a277e1da6e442c971f8cc8e1">If a host cannot support interactive “Ask,” it defaults safely to Deny</li><li data-list-item-id="ec790330b39c695d6cdacf4118e106c1b">If an engine fails, hosts fail-open and log explicitly</li></ul>These operational tradeoffs are intentional. Predictability is essential in security infrastructure.<h3>Why AARTS Matters</h3>Without a shared runtime contract:<ul type="disc"><li data-list-item-id="e2574817ec2bfc1a1b0233c5fca970994">Security integrations are bespoke and brittle</li><li data-list-item-id="ebbe5c354debe741cc08436719a34032e">Tool taxonomy is inconsistent</li><li data-list-item-id="e2f498a30e5d748e37c3176b169145707">Prompt injection controls vary by host</li><li data-list-item-id="e3aff5387909fd85f523c40998fdb13b0">Supply chain risk is unevenly enforced</li></ul>With AARTS:<ul type="disc"><li data-list-item-id="eaa8f402b20b740f0992dd0f9b4f42b44">One engine can operate across multiple hosts</li><li data-list-item-id="e3ddcda4fa65f1abd066be4b0bef0201b">Policies remain portable</li><li data-list-item-id="e5ec3076209374ae5eafb39a00f19adf4">Audit logs become comparable</li><li data-list-item-id="e6f17fa0cc0a6a6e0136b63569cdc58a6">Trust boundaries are explicit</li></ul>AARTS standardizes enforcement in the agentic world.To read the full technical breakdown, see the full AART&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gendigital.com/blog/news/company-news/ai-agent-runtime-security">technical blog post</a>. To comment on the standards, visit our page on&nbsp;<a href="https://github.com/gendigitalinc/aarts">GitHub</a>.<h2>Pillar Two: Skill IDs</h2><h3>Fingerprinting AI Agent Skills</h3>AI agents are extended through skills – directory bundles containing a SKILL.md prompt file alongside scripts, templates, configuration, and documentation.These skills function like plugins. Install one, and the agent gains new capabilities.But skills are not single files. They are directory trees.And directory trees are notoriously difficult to fingerprint reliably.<h3>The Identity Problem</h3>A naive SHA-256 hash of a ZIP file does not work:<ul type="disc"><li data-list-item-id="e6fc83ba16d130bd7d3d62ba2af79f96d">ZIP files are non-deterministic</li><li data-list-item-id="ee7939e0ca570cb480cbdc5b8e5460ece">Timestamps vary</li><li data-list-item-id="e5d398fbba0c41d53d0e3782902bce4c1">Entry order differs</li><li data-list-item-id="e95611c8e95e6ad4f16eccdede99ac42c">Unicode normalization differs across OS platforms</li><li data-list-item-id="ef8771bdef58d5438cc192edc36e89c56">Wrapper directory names vary</li></ul>Two identical skills can produce different ZIP hashes.That is unacceptable for security workflows.<h3>Designing the Skill ID</h3>Skill IDs solve this problem by creating a deterministic, content-addressable identifier for a skill’s logical directory tree.The algorithm:<ol><li data-list-item-id="ebdc8f7c1fc531f4ccbd79f2baf7b6d83">Extract all files and directories</li><li data-list-item-id="e06cf4d178c29a57575a249d22d5cb9b4">Normalize paths (slashes, Unicode NFC, dot components)</li><li data-list-item-id="e69f139d48a1c91815267ffb649c74e07">Strip wrapper directories</li><li data-list-item-id="e07c1da87b4b07a634d73a79ab93f9134">Hash each file individually (SHA-256)</li><li data-list-item-id="ef7cb735107df0cafdbcc921e639c0212">Build sorted tree entries using null-byte delimiters</li><li data-list-item-id="eab8b3782aab3b4dd9b0f4aed3255caf8">Hash the tree to produce the final Skill ID</li></ol>The result is a 64-character SHA-256 digest that changes if and only if meaningful content changes.Same content, different ZIP packaging? Same ID. One byte changed? Different ID.This mirrors git’s tree hashing model and decades of security best practices.<h3>What Skill IDs Enable</h3>A stable identity primitive unlocks established security workflows:Allowlisting Approved skills can bypass repeated analysis.Content-addressable storage Deduplicate identical submissions automatically.Per-file caching Reuse expensive AI analysis on unchanged files.Detection flagging Connect file hashes to reputation systems.Version tracking Content becomes the version boundary.Skill IDs provide identity before verdict.<h3>From Identity to Authenticity: Signing Skills</h3>Identity answers “what is this?”Authenticity answers “who published this?”We are exploring a signing model inspired by Authenticode:<ul type="disc"><li data-list-item-id="e2103c63753a0f24a87fa144d75611c7a">A skill.sig file embedded inside the directory</li><li data-list-item-id="e28e6643465e0cabeea54eb4bc5302028">Excluded from the Skill ID calculation</li><li data-list-item-id="e700fd96bf7f3d0db4aa70df0a92d57ec">Contains a signature over the Skill ID</li><li data-list-item-id="ea2483e766cae2defa9d2dd19707d9302">Verifiable against the author’s public key</li></ul>This enables:<ul type="disc"><li data-list-item-id="eddf73c0b79d7d482c030736b4f449be8">Author signing</li><li data-list-item-id="e3d708097518f6e38a31a73aaf27ecb49">Marketplace attestation</li><li data-list-item-id="e81ca5157252eece76405ff632c0d6722">Certificate chains</li><li data-list-item-id="efe336aa9f477f99f141fc5a81f887d9b">Revocation workflows</li></ul>Self-verifiable skills create accountability without external lookups.To read the full technical breakdown, see the full <a href="https://www.gendigital.com/blog/insights/research/ai-agent-skill-fingerprinting" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">SkillsID technical blog post</a>. To comment on the standards, visit our page on <a href="https://github.com/gendigitalinc/skill-id-standard">GitHub</a>.&nbsp;<h2>The AI Agent Safety Standards by Gen: Identity + Enforcement</h2>AARTS governs runtime enforcement. Skill IDs govern artifact identity.Together, they form the foundation of the AI Agent Safety Standards.<ul type="disc"><li data-list-item-id="ea3ef208939f34e4fcfaf98bd8e26b2d6">Skills can be uniquely identified, versioned, and signed.</li><li data-list-item-id="e30dceebd279e7a291dc71a82c7168ab2">Runtime actions can be evaluated consistently across hosts.</li><li data-list-item-id="e1a7b0d4259c4abb5e6ba2f38dffd6aaa">Supply chain trust and runtime enforcement operate under shared semantics.</li></ul>This is the same model that matured endpoint security over decades:<ul type="disc"><li data-list-item-id="ebacb70fb4a6565c103650a6c6ee67532">File hashes</li><li data-list-item-id="ed254dd1eec0c62e2aea6bce82e871995">Content signatures</li><li data-list-item-id="e37a3133a17b4a1adca017b868990baa6">Runtime enforcement</li><li data-list-item-id="eeeb5f5d7a84badb31f60600269d24edf">Portable policy engines</li></ul>We are applying those proven patterns to a new artifact type and a new execution model.<h2>Looking Ahead</h2>These standards are early. AARTS v0.1 is a draft. Skill ID signing is an evolving proposal. Adapter conformance testing, enterprise fail-open profiles, and cross-marketplace reputation sharing remain active areas of collaboration.But the direction is clear.AI agents are moving from experimentation to infrastructure. Security must do the same.The Gen Agent Trust Hub is our contribution to building a predictable, interoperable trust layer for the agentic ecosystem.&nbsp;We invite host builders, marketplace operators, enterprise security teams, and fellow security vendors to review, adopt, and challenge.Because in the agentic era, safety cannot be bespoke. It must be foundational.&nbsp;

Shaping the standards for a safer, freer Agentic Era 

Leading the Way for AI Agent Safety 

Director of Threat Research & Applied AI

We built a security engine that protects AI agents across several major platforms. The hardest part wasn't building the protection. It was discovering that each platform exposes different security-relevant events, provides different context about what the agent is doing and why, and enforces security decisions differently. The same agent action we can catch and block in one platform is invisible in another, not because our detection failed, but because the platform never told us it happened. There are now over a dozen agent platforms, from IDE assistants like Claude Code, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot, to agentic frameworks like LangChain, CrewAI, and OpenAI Agents SDK, to orchestrators like n8n, and each one handles this differently, if at all.Today, Gen is releasing AI Agent Runtime Safety Standard (AARTS) as part of its Agent Trust Hub initiative, which aimsto address this fragmentation. This is not a security product, but rather a set of vendor-neutral standards that connects agent hosts (IDEs, orchestrators, frameworks, standalone agent apps), security engines (components that evaluate agent actions), and adapters (thin mappings that translate host-native events into a common schema). For those building or operating agents, AARTS enables portable, consistent security decisions across hosts, eliminating the need to rebuild security integrations from scratch.&nbsp;The standard is open and vendor-neutral, and any host or security vendor can implement or contribute to it.<h2 class="text-align-justify">The Problem AARTS Addresses</h2>Agentic systems fail in ways that are familiar but occur more rapidly and with greater reach. Examples include sequences evolving from helpful actions to dangerous activities like&nbsp;"download and execute," prompt injection steering tool use, supply chain issues affecting skills and plugins, sensitive data exposure by agents, and permission confusion resulting from sub-agents and external tool providers creating additional trust boundaries. Although these risks are not new, they now manifest within a rapidly diversifying set of hosts and tool APIs.Without a shared contract, security becomes a collection of one-off integrations, each missing context and offering inconsistent enforcement. This leads either to weak coverage, due to incomplete integrations and context, or to overly blunt blocking when trust is undermined by limited interpretation. AARTS targets the root cause: the lack of shared semantics and hook points.In our previous&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gendigital.com/blog/news/company-news/ai-agent-detection-and-response" target="_blank">post on Agent Detection and Response</a>, we described how attackers register AI-hallucinated package names on npm and PyPI, preloaded with infostealers. Catching that requires seeing the package install action with enough context — the package name, the source, whether the agent hallucinated it or the user requested it. One platform gives us all of that. Another gives us the command string with no structured metadata. A third doesn't emit the event at all. Same attack, three different levels of visibility.Simply put, AARTS standardizes where security decisions can be made (hook points), what data is available for decision-making (data model), and how decisions are enforced (verdict semantics), ensuring consistent protections across different agent hosts.<h2 class="text-align-justify">Architecture and Roles</h2>AARTS defines three distinct roles:<ul type="disc"><li data-list-item-id="ef43f78807d68ed5d7cafc41e43ed6a77">Host: The environment that runs the agent. The host emits lifecycle events at defined hook points and enforces decisions.</li><li data-list-item-id="ea8ecfedda9151e1e4ff45954fc0bd003">Adapter: A minimal translation layer that maps host-specific events into AARTS events, normalizing tool names, lifecycle phases, and context.</li><li data-list-item-id="ec84e412023baa1359b60a4c189c0ce73">Security Engine: The evaluator that receives AARTS events, applies detection strategies, and returns structured verdicts.</li></ul>This separation matters. Embedding security logic in hosts results in superficial security ("checkbox security"), while engines depending on host internals compromise portability. AARTS keeps the boundary clean: hosts provide the right moments and context, and engines make decisions. AARTS also supports various integration models (in-process, subprocess, remote), accommodating different latency, isolation, and operational requirements.<h2 class="text-align-justify">How the Standard Works</h2>AARTS defines hook points, moments in an agent's lifecycle where a security engine can intercept, evaluate, and act. Version 0.1 specifies 19 of them across session management, prompt lifecycle, tool execution, plugin and skill loading, sub-agent behavior, memory operations, and output delivery.Not all hooks carry equal weight. Three illustrate the design logic:<ul type="disc"><li data-list-item-id="e9e499b9374a4cd1f71378518f359c0d6">PreToolUse is the primary checkpoint. Before an agent runs a shell command, writes a file, makes a network request, or installs a package, the security engine sees the action, its arguments, and the context that led to it, then returns a verdict: allow, deny, or ask the user. This is where most real-world threats get caught.</li><li data-list-item-id="ebd37c3ab71aca6ef9cddd1080d793f75">PreLLMRequest operates earlier in the loop, before the prompt reaches the model. It lets engines inspect prompt integrity: whether safety instructions survived context compaction, whether untrusted content was injected into the conversation, whether the instruction layering is intact. If PreToolUse is the checkpoint at the door, PreLLMRequest watches for problems before the agent even decides what to do.</li><li data-list-item-id="ecce291342cb701e4290928d827faf930">PreSkillLoad addresses supply chain risk. When an agent installs a plugin or skill from a marketplace, the engine can evaluate the trust source (where it came from, whether it's signed, whether it was modified) before it gets loaded. AARTS can also direct the host to strip hooks from skills, preventing plugins from disabling the security layer that's supposed to govern them.</li></ul>The remaining 16 hooks follow the same pattern: they sit at the moment where risk becomes real and provide the engine with enough context to make a decision.For those decisions to be portable across hosts, the inputs have to be consistent. AARTS standardizes the event structure: every event carries a mandatory envelope (hook point, session ID, timestamp, host identity) plus standard extensions, reusable field groups for conversation context, tool details, trust source metadata, modification tracking, and provenance. A canonical tool taxonomy maps host-specific tool names (Cursor's "terminal" vs. Claude Code's "bash") to common categories (shell, file_write, web_request, package_install), so detection logic written once works everywhere.Verdicts are structured: a decision (allow, deny, or ask), a threat category, a severity level, confidence, and a human-readable explanation for the user. Two design choices are worth noting. If the host can't prompt the user, ask falls back to deny, safe but a real constraint for headless orchestrators. If the engine crashes or times out, the host treats it as allow and logs the failure. Fail-open is the right default for developer tools where latency matters, but enterprise deployments will want to revisit this per environment.<h2 class="text-align-justify">Conformance Levels: Gradual Adoption</h2>AARTS defines three conformance levels:<ul type="disc"><li data-list-item-id="e18c7418214ef4f97b683f20402deb227">Level 1 (Basic): Requires SessionStart and PreToolUse hooks, minimum tool coverage (shell, file_write, web_request), enforcement of allow and deny (ask may be treated as deny).</li><li data-list-item-id="e0369d9837c299bdfd5a5c490fb899318">Level 2 (Standard): Adds plugin and skill load hooks, prompt lifecycle protection, broader tool coverage, additional hooks (PrePluginLoad, PreSkillLoad, PostInputProcessing, PreLLMRequest, PostToolUse), and requires provenance on PreToolUse.</li><li data-list-item-id="e31f70f735daa583aec2ef8c2d180686d">Level 3 (Comprehensive): Provides full lifecycle coverage including user input, prompt response cycle, tool modification, sub-agents, MCP connect, memory read/write, output delivery, and session end. Clarifies sub-agent inheritance and memory protection.</li></ul>This tiered approach offers a realistic adoption path: Level 1 addresses basic failures, Level 2 tackles prompt integrity and supply chain issues, and Level 3 supports persistent and autonomous agents.<h2 class="text-align-justify">Open&nbsp;Considerations</h2>As we move AARTS beyond a draft specification,&nbsp;the following are being considered:<ul type="disc"><li data-list-item-id="ef56e3529222a5671c75f8e80fbc5c2c9">Enterprise fail-open story: The spec mandates fail-open behavior. Deployment profiles may be needed to reflect the realities of different environments.</li><li data-list-item-id="e5e2beee0ceee16ba315173c83dcc4596">Adapter integrity: Ensuring adapters correctly map tool types and extract artifacts is vital. A conformance test suite for adapters is as important as the specification itself is a next-step priority.</li><li data-list-item-id="eea2912c8ee60ab64a8339e4d3c2b5748">Consent for privacy: Explicit consent is required for external transmission of prompts and tool data. Operational guidance or recommended patterns are needed to avoid incompatible implementations.</li><li data-list-item-id="e7dbd49139e599330dbad43c59209bc82">Ask semantics in headless environments: Treating ask as deny by default is safe but may discourage engines from using ask. A standard way for deployment policy to handle ask in these scenarios is needed.</li></ul>AARTS aims to translate&nbsp;these considerations into predictable operational behavior.<h2 class="text-align-justify">Call for Feedback</h2>AARTS v0.1 is a draft intended for early review by host builders, security vendors, and enterprise operators.&nbsp;The full specification is available <a href="https://github.com/gendigitalinc/aarts" target="_blank">here</a>. If you build agent hosts, consider whether you want every security integration to remain one-off. If you develop security engines, ask yourself whether you want to rewrite the same logic for each host and still miss critical context. AARTS aims to make the answer “no”.&nbsp;We welcome contributions — open an issue or submit a pull request.

AARTS standardizes how AI agent platforms expose security events, enabling portable runtime protection across the growing agent ecosystem

Introducing AARTS: An Open Standard for AI Agent Runtime Safety

You gave an AI agent access to your computer. Maybe it's writing code for you, managing your emails, or handling your finances. It's working with your credentials, acting on your behalf, and making decisions you used to make yourself. Fast, confidently, and largely unsupervised. That's the deal: you trade safety and oversight for productivity. That changes the security model.But who's watching what it actually does?That is why we built the Gen Agent Trust Hub (ATH), our trust layer for the agentic AI ecosystem, designed to secure agents across their lifecycle from skill to runtime to enforcement.Agent Detection and Response (ADR) is the runtime pillar — the layer that governs what agents actually do.<h2 class="text-align-justify">What is ADR?</h2>ADR intercepts agent actions at the moment of execution, before they land, and evaluates whether they're safe. It allows, asks the user, or denies. That's the core.Verification tells you what an agent is. ADR tells you what it's doing. These are complementary. Verification is necessary, but it can't govern what happens at runtime. A verified skill can still hallucinate a malicious package name. A signed plugin can still be exploited through prompt injection. A trusted agent can still lose its safety instructions mid-session and go off the rails. The moment of action is where risk becomes real.The principle isn't new. Every major computing paradigm has developed its own detection and response layer. Endpoints got EDR. Distributed infrastructure got XDR. Not replacements for what came before, but purpose-built layers for new execution surfaces with new threat models. AI agents are the next such surface, and ADR is the layer built for it.Within the Agent Trust Hub, ADR is the enforcement engine that turns trust signals into real-world protection.<h2>Why Now?</h2>The threats targeting AI agents are already here. What follows is a small sample of the agentic threats we’re seeing. The actual attack surface spans everything an agent can do, and agents can do a lot.Your agent installs malware for you. AI agents hallucinate. When they hallucinate a package name during installation, that's not just an error, it's an opportunity. Attackers monitor AI-suggested package names and register them on npm and PyPI, pre-loaded with infostealers and backdoors. The technique is called slopsquatting, and it's already being exploited at scale. In February 2026, researchers uncovered a campaign of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.securityweek.com/new-sandworm_mode-supply-chain-attack-hits-npm/">19 typosquatted packages specifically</a> targeting users of AI coding tools, designed to exfiltrate SSH keys, AWS credentials, and API tokens.Your agent ignores your instructions. Summer Yue, Meta's Director of Alignment, told her OpenClaw agent to&nbsp;<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/23/a-meta-ai-security-researcher-said-an-openclaw-agent-ran-amok-on-her-inbox/">confirm before taking any action</a> on her email. It worked, until the session ran long enough to trigger context compaction, a mechanism where the agent compresses its memory to keep running. The safety instructions were among the first things dropped. The agent deleted 847 emails. She had to physically run to her machine to stop it.Your agent is a new delivery channel for malware. Attackers are already using multiple paths to get malicious code running through agents. Weaponized skills on public marketplaces have delivered the&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/GenThreatLabs/status/2018323584834318419">AMOS infostealer to macOS users</a>. Malicious project configurations have achieved&nbsp;<a href="https://research.checkpoint.com/2026/rce-and-api-token-exfiltration-through-claude-code-project-files-cve-2025-59536/">remote code execution in Claude Code</a> the moment a developer opens a repository. Prompt injection through fetched content can turn a trusted agent into an attacker's proxy. The delivery mechanisms vary. The result is the same: your agent executes something it shouldn't, and it does so with your permissions.These are just three examples. The pattern is consistent: agents operate with real authority, and that authority is being exploited. Through supply chains, through the agent's own fragility, and through the same malware ecosystem that has targeted every other computing platform before them.<h2>Where ADR Must Operate</h2>To be effective, ADR must sit as close to the agent's execution loop as possible. Not as an external service watching from the outside. Inside, where the actions happen.Agent sessions contain source code, credentials, business logic, and personal data. ADR evaluates locally, on the device. No prompts, tool inputs, or code leave your machine for analysis.Agents are not robust systems. Their own internal mechanisms can silently drop safety instructions or get poisoned across sessions. A security layer that only sees inputs and outputs misses the moment things go wrong inside. ADR watches the execution loop itself: every action the agent attempts, in context, in sequence.Only a client-side layer sees the complete picture: the prompt history, what files were already modified, the sequence of prior actions. A remote service sees isolated events. ADR sees the session. That difference is what makes it possible to distinguish a legitimate file deletion from a compromised agent cleaning up its tracks.<h2>Sage: ADR in Practice</h2>In February, we&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gendigital.com/blog/news/company-news/sage-ai-agent-security">open-sourced Sage</a> as the first implementation of ADR. It runs client-side, directly inside the agent's execution loop, across Claude Code, Cursor, and OpenClaw. Over 200 detection rules cover supply chain attacks, credential exposure, dangerous commands, persistence mechanisms, and more, backed by Gen's threat intelligence.Since launch,&nbsp;<a href="https://github.com/avast/sage/">Sage</a> has quickly crossed 1,000 installs and is available across the major agentic tool marketplaces. The open-source community is already contributing, porting Sage to new platforms like OpenCode and hardening detection rules. As one independent security researcher concluded after&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/paranoid-sage-testing-security-tool-agents-radek-hendrych-capff/">testing Sage</a>: "Real-time monitoring and management of AI agents based on deterministic measures is, in my view, the right way to go."All these responses confirm what we suspected: people want this layer.<h2>What's Next</h2>ADR is the runtime layer. But runtime protection alone isn't enough.&nbsp;The Agent Trust Hub is built on the idea that trust in the agentic era must be layered: verification before installation, ecosystem trust signals across marketplaces, and enforcement at execution. ADR closes the gap at the moment risk becomes real.&nbsp;The industry needs a common interface for how agents expose their actions to security tools. A shared standard, so that protection works consistently regardless of which agent you use or which platform you're on. We've been working on that too. More soon.

Inside the Gen Agent Trust Hub, ADR turns trust signals into real-world protection.

Gen Agent Trust Hub Introduces Agent Detection and Response: The Missing Security Layer for Agentic AI 

Threat Research Team

AI agents are starting to do the parts of computing that used to be “hands on keyboard”. They run terminal commands, edit files, install packages, and fetch things from the web, because that’s what it takes to get real work done. Tools like Claude Code, Cursor, and OpenClaw give these agents direct access to your machine and your sensitive information. That's what makes them useful. It's also what makes them risky. These agents make mistakes. They install packages that don't exist because they hallucinated the name. They pick up credentials and pass them where they shouldn't. They'll download and run programs from the internet without a second thought if the task seems to call for it. All of this happens fast, with confidence, and without asking. If you’ve watched an agent confidently suggest curl … | bash or “just add your API key here” into a file it shouldn’t touch, you’ve seen the problem.&nbsp;Agents are also targets. Malicious URLs, poisoned dependencies, and compromised plugins can turn an agent into an attack vector, one that already has access to your files, your terminal, and your network. This is already happening. <a href="https://x.com/GenThreatLabs/status/2018323584834318419" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">We recently identified</a> around 400 malicious skills on ClawHub, a public registry for agent extensions. At the time of discovery, they accounted for 12% of all available skills. These weren’t obviously shady throwaways; many were weaponized versions of legitimate skills, designed to trick agents into downloading malware.&nbsp;&nbsp;These are the same agents we're starting to trust with payments, infrastructure, and sensitive workflows. The gap between what agents can do and what keeps them in check is real, and it's growing.&nbsp;Today, Gen, the company behind Norton, Avast, LifeLock, and AVG, is releasing Sage to close that gap. With Sage, the Agent Trust Hub now evaluates and governs agent behavior during execution. Not just before installation. Not just at verification. But in the exact moment an action is about to happen.&nbsp;

<h2>What Sage does</h2>Think of Sage as a lightweight safety shield for AI agents. It sits inside the agent's workflow and checks every action before it happens: shell commands, URL fetches, file writes, package installs. For each action, Sage returns a verdict:&nbsp;<ul type="disc"><li data-list-item-id="e2aee30f293d4edf72390d310cdfa3f0e">Allow — no threat detected, the action proceeds&nbsp;</li><li data-list-item-id="e89d49ae9fae752dee97f089112c466b8">Ask — something looks suspicious, the user decides&nbsp;</li><li data-list-item-id="e44ca3f76876a9e666f2544e1233366ba">Deny — confirmed threat, the action is blocked&nbsp;</li></ul>The agent never notices unless something is wrong.&nbsp;Sage catches both sides of the risk. It protects agents from external threats like malicious URLs, compromised packages, and dangerous downloads. And it protects users from agents themselves, when they try to run destructive commands, expose credentials, or write to sensitive system files.&nbsp;Here's a concrete example. An agent automating a setup task decides to download and execute a script from the internet. No review, no confirmation. Sage recognizes the pattern and blocks it before anything runs.&nbsp;<h2 class="text-align-justify">Part of a larger commitment</h2>Sage is not a standalone effort. It’s part of a broader strategy to embed continuous trust into the AI skills ecosystem through the Gen Agent Trust Hub.&nbsp;&nbsp;The Skill Scanner of the <a href="https://ai.gendigital.com/agent-trust-hub" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Gen Agent Trust Hub</a> helps determine whether an agent extension is trustworthy before it gets installed, using cloud-based verification and classification. Sage picks up where that leaves off. Once the agent is running, it enforces safety locally, on your machine, checking every action at the moment it's about to execute.&nbsp;&nbsp;Together, they cover the full lifecycle: from the decision to install something to the moment it actually runs. More capabilities are on the way as the agentic ecosystem grows.&nbsp;<h2 class="text-align-justify">Open source, on purpose</h2>The agentic platforms themselves are designed for open integration: open-source tools, community plugins, public hook APIs. A closed security layer would be harder to adopt in a space that moves fast and depends on community integrations.&nbsp;At the same time, there is no established playbook for how to secure AI agents. By open-sourcing Sage, we're proposing one and inviting the community to help define what safe agents should look like in practice.&nbsp;This first version is lightweight. It's not a full antivirus product as we know it, but it addresses the problems where they are. It covers the high-risk paths we think matter most: commands, file changes, URL fetches, and package installs, including catching hallucinated or malicious dependencies before they land on your machine. Sage ships with over 200 detection rules covering command injection, persistence, credential exposure, obfuscation, and supply-chain attacks.&nbsp;Sage currently supports Claude Code, Cursor, and OpenClaw, with more platforms on the way. If you find a detection that's too noisy or not strict enough, open an issue. If you want to add a rule, improve a check, or add support for another agent platform, send a pull request.&nbsp;We built Sage to be extended.&nbsp;&nbsp;<h2>Try it</h2>Learn more about Sage at <a href="https://ai.gendigital.com/sage" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://ai.gendigital.com/sage</a>. For technical details, documentation, and source code, visit the project on <a href="https://github.com/avast/sage" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://github.com/avast/sage.</a>&nbsp;If you use Claude Code, Cursor, or OpenClaw, install Sage and put it in the path of real work. The fastest way to improve a safety layer is to expose it to real commands, real repos, and real mistakes. That's what we're doing here — shipping early, in the open.&nbsp;

Closing the growing security gap between what Al agents can do and what keeps them in check

Introducing Sage: Safety for Agents 

AI agents aren’t just helpful in chats anymore. They’re actually taking action on your behalf. Autonomous AI can access data. They move from suggestion to execution without hesitation.&nbsp;This is what we call “mindless artificial intelligence.”&nbsp;When technology starts taking action on our behalf, trust has to be built into the system itself.&nbsp;That’s why Gen is partnering with Vercel to bring independent safety verification to the AI skills ecosystem at <a href="https://skills.sh/" target="_blank">skills.sh</a>, embedding trust directly into the skills layer.&nbsp;

<h2>Independent verification. Built in.&nbsp;</h2>Through this partnership, the Gen <a href="https://ai.gendigital.com/agent-trust-hub" target="_blank">Agent Trust Hub</a> will evaluate skills on skills.sh and assign clear, transparent classifications:&nbsp;🟢 Safe&nbsp; 🟡 Low Risk&nbsp; 🟠 High Risk&nbsp; 🔴 Critical Risk&nbsp;Behind those ratings is advanced risk modeling and threat intelligence from Gen Threat Labs, analyzing permissions, behaviors, vulnerabilities and potential malicious intent.&nbsp;The goal isn’t to slow innovation. It’s to help it scale responsibly. Developers should be able to build boldly. Users should be able to install confidently. And both deserve clarity.&nbsp;<h2>Security as infrastructure, not an afterthought&nbsp;</h2>By integrating verification directly into skills.sh, Gen and Vercel are making security part of the AI development lifecycle, not something bolted on after the fact.&nbsp;In the agentic world, skills are how things get done. Until now, developers and users had limited visibility into whether a skill was truly safe. Reputation and documentation can’t tell the whole story. As agents gain autonomy, guesswork isn’t good enough.&nbsp;The trust has to be visible.

<h2>Powering Digital Freedom in what comes next&nbsp;</h2>At Gen, we believe Digital Freedom means being able to embrace new technology without sacrificing safety or confidence. As AI evolves, our responsibility evolves with it.&nbsp;The future of AI will be powerful. And expansive. But, it must also be secure by design.&nbsp;This partnership is one more step toward building the trust foundation the agentic era demands, so innovation and confidence can grow together.&nbsp;

Bringing transparent risk ratings to the AI skills ecosystem to help developers build boldly and users move confidently

The trust layer for the agentic era 

Looking back at 2023, "Powering Digital Freedom" resonates as more than just an idea — it's been our driving motivation for all the work we did and continue to do. Our goal has always been to develop technology solutions that enable people to explore the digital world safely, securely and confidently. This last year, we've set new standards for protecting consumers and innovating within the security landscape, making the digital world a safer place for everyone. &nbsp; Our achievements, partnerships and forward-thinking vision continue to prove our standing as the leader in Cyber Safety. &nbsp;We’ve hit many major milestones in our first year as Gen. While there is so much to reflect on and celebrate, here are a few highlights.

<h2>Leveraging AI to fight fraudsters: introducing Norton Genie&nbsp;&nbsp;</h2>In response to the evolving sophistication of cyber threats, we introduced Norton Genie to help people take control of their Cyber Safety. This innovative app combines the power of AI with the human intelligence and experience of our teams to combat digital scams, which are becoming more complex and prevalent every day.&nbsp; &nbsp;With proprietary AI models trained on decades of scam and fraud data, Genie provides an accessible and intuitive way for people to intelligently judge the legitimacy of messages across various platforms. Whether dealing with texts, emails or social media messages, Genie operates as a simple yet powerful tool in the fight against digital scams.&nbsp;&nbsp;Our goals for Genie are clear: provide an approachable application that offers a real-time guide for people in a world where scams and fraud are harder to spot than ever. By simply uploading a screenshot of a suspicious message, people can gain immediate insights into its credibility. This accessibility, combined with advanced AI technology, helps to empower consumers to navigate their digital communications confidently and helps to safeguard them against potential threats.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

<h2>Partnering with the Open Wallet Foundation to promote Digital Freedom&nbsp;&nbsp;</h2>In today's world, digital connectivity is essential, enabling individuals to shop, bank, learn and connect from virtually anywhere. As we approach an even more digitally integrated future, we're committed to ensuring that this evolution prioritizes people’s safety, privacy and freedom. Our unique approach focuses on creating a future where digital empowerment and security go hand in hand.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;This year, our partnership with the&nbsp;<a href="https://openwallet.foundation/">Open Wallet Foundation</a>&nbsp;(OWF) marked a significant milestone toward realizing that goal. We advocate for a secure, decentralized means for transactions and identity that turns away from a future where individual companies control people’s data and financial information.&nbsp; &nbsp;The open-source digital wallet, a key goal of the OWF, supports the development of digital wallets that are portable, secure and able to be used on any device, for any service and with any type of data. It’s a sea change for consumer autonomy, offering a solution where privacy, financial information and transaction history are controlled by the individual, rather than individual corporations.&nbsp;&nbsp;<h2>Hitting top 5 for the Fortune Modern Board 25&nbsp;&nbsp;</h2>Our recognition by the&nbsp;<a href="https://fortune.com/ranking/modern-board-25/">Fortune Modern Board 25</a>&nbsp;as having one of the top five most innovative boards in the S&amp;P 500 is a proud reflection of our ongoing commitment to consumer protection.&nbsp; &nbsp;Fortune’s prestigious ranking highlights the diverse and innovation-driven members of our board, stretching from Arizona to Prague. Our board members come from backgrounds that reflect expertise in Cyber Safety and other related fields. Their collective diversity, experience, insight and independence are the driving forces behind our innovative approach to navigating the rapidly changing digital climate.&nbsp;&nbsp;On top of this recognition, we also received other accolades that deserve a mention:&nbsp;&nbsp;<ul><li>One of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gendigital.com/blog/news/company-news/newsweek-most-trustworthy-companies-2023">America’s Most Trustworthy Companies</a>&nbsp;by Newsweek&nbsp;</li><li><a href="https://www.pcmag.com/articles/best-tech-brands-2024">Best Tech Brands</a>&nbsp;by PCMag, Norton and Avast&nbsp;</li><li><a href="https://www.gendigital.com/blog/news/innovation/se-labs-awards">Best Home and Free Anti-Malware</a>&nbsp;by SE Labs, Norton 360 and Avast Free Antivirus&nbsp;</li><li><a href="https://www.gendigital.com/blog/news/innovation/av-test-awards">Best Protection</a>&nbsp;(Windows) by AV-Test, Norton, Avast, AVG and Avira&nbsp;</li></ul><h2>Honoring our responsibilities and creating a culture of giving&nbsp;&nbsp;</h2>We’re committed to making a real impact. And, for us, the best way we know how is to connect our passions with technical knowledge to provide Cyber Safety education and data privacy training around the world. With partners like Nasscom Foundation, Czechitas and The Trevor Project, we’re able to support and empower people of all ages and from all walks of life.&nbsp;From large-scale efforts like $424K donated on Giving Tuesday, our&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gendigital.com/blog/impact/community/gen-volunteer-day-2023">Global Volunteer Day</a>, and Back-to-School volunteering to individual efforts for sustainability, 2023 has been full of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gendigital.com/us/en/social-impact/social-impact-report/">positive impact</a>&nbsp;that people can feel. We’re very grateful that others have recognized us for that.&nbsp;<ul><li>One of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/rankings/americas-most-responsible-companies-2024">America’s Most Responsible Companies</a>&nbsp;by Newsweek&nbsp;</li><li><a href="https://bit.ly/3RktM1Z">Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index</a>&nbsp;by S&amp;P Global&nbsp;</li><li><a href="https://www.pointsoflight.org/press-releases/points-of-light-announces-2023-honorees-of-the-civic-50-and-releases-key-insights/">The Civic 50</a>&nbsp;by Points of Light&nbsp;</li></ul>Our social impact work helps us to bring equity, opportunities and safety to people all over the globe.&nbsp;&nbsp;

<h2>Our commitment to innovation and protection continues&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</h2>As we look to the future, our dedication to protecting people around the world from scams, viruses, malware and other exploits remains steadfast. Gen stands to be at the forefront of Cyber Safety innovation and our global reach informs our understanding of cultural nuances and vulnerabilities in our fight against cyberthreats. For 2024, we’ll continue to adapt and address the ever-evolving threat landscape, now exacerbated by weaponization of AI, to provide comprehensive protection for people worldwide.&nbsp;&nbsp;We're proud of the strides we've made in our purpose of Powering Digital Freedom and excited for what lies ahead. We invite you to delve deeper into our accomplishments and future plans by visiting the&nbsp;<a href="https://newsroom.gendigital.com/">Gen newsroom</a>&nbsp;and exploring our&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gendigital.com/us/en/family-of-brands/">product advancements</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;Together, we can continue to shape a future where Digital Freedom and security are not just ideals but realities for everyone. Join us in creating a safer digital tomorrow.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

2023 at Gen: Our Year in Review

Looking Back at 2023 and Dreaming of 2024 

What do we mean by an “open” wallet? &nbsp;

In contrast to proprietary technology or a “walled garden,” an open wallet ecosystem enables individuals to move their data freely across the internet – with the ability to safely and privately share information with trusted brands, peers and devices. If an individual switches from Apple to Android, or vice versa, they should be able to take their wallet with them – just as they can transfer money between banks. If you think of digital wallets as the keys to your digital life, then an open wallet ensures that these keys can never be “locked in” to a proprietary wallet. The individual is always in control. &nbsp;

OpenWallet Foundation (OWF) recently published its definition of what it means to build a truly, <a href="https://openwallet.foundation/2023/08/23/join-us-in-building-a-truly-open-wallet-foundation/">“open” wallet community</a>. This is an effort Gen strongly supports because, as a founding Premier member of the OWF, we believe it is critical to the growing open wallet movement.&nbsp;&nbsp;

To explain why this matters, let’s start with something more familiar: a physical wallet. If you think of the wallet, clutch or purse you use every day, you likely have a variety of paper or plastic cards that can be used to either make a purchase or prove your identity. These wallets come in all sorts of shapes and carry different brand names and security features, like RFID blocking, but ultimately, they are a vessel for carrying these payment and identity cards. If you’re at checkout, it makes no difference to the retailer what brand your wallet is, and you can move your cards from one wallet to another with no impact.&nbsp;

A digital wallet is much the same, except instead of being restricted to pocket-sized cards, you can now store any type of digital document, from diplomas to deeds. There is a growing movement across the public and private sectors to digitize paper records and make them easier to securely share online using digital wallet technology. Most notably, we’re seeing a new specification for mobile driver licenses available in select US states, which can already be stored in an Apple or Google Wallet. We’re also seeing a host of individual brands offering their own digital wallets to enable a variety of use cases, from omnichannel authentication to loyalty programs.&nbsp;

While we’re still in the early days, we believe digital wallets – and the ability they represent for individuals to be able to control their data – will be a cornerstone of the future of our digital world. They could become just as important as the browsers and smartphone apps you use every day. They could arguably be even more important because the wallet will become the primary tool through which individuals maintain their digital security, protect their digital privacy and assert their digital autonomy.&nbsp;

Your digital wallet will contain the “keys to your kingdom”— the cryptographic keys you will use to securely unlock everything in your digital life, from your devices and files to your accounts and services. Your wallet will also contain the set of verifiable digital credentials that you need to provide proof of your identity and permissions at all the various sites and services you use — just like you need the credentials in your physical wallet today to board a plane, rent a car and reserve a hotel room.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Forty years ago, the open internet started unlocking billions of dollars in new value for people, businesses and governments all over the world. In the 2000’s, the open web repeated the feat, unlocking trillions more in value. &nbsp;

The next step is the open wallet era — and it is well on its way. For example, on its six-month anniversary last week, the OpenWallet Foundation (OWF) <a href="https://openwallet.foundation/2023/08/23/openwallet-foundation-announces-google-as-premier-member/">announced two milestones</a>: the addition of Google as the newest Premier member and the contribution of digital wallet code components from the Modular Open Source Identity Platform (MOSIP), an open-source platform for national scale digital identity systems.&nbsp;

Open wallet infrastructure is poised to generate tremendous value yet again for our digital world — while at the same time giving us a powerful new tool for solving many of our deepest cybersecurity, privacy and digital equity problems.&nbsp;&nbsp;

At Gen, we consider open wallets to be closely aligned with our purpose of powering Digital Freedom, and it’s why we’re so proud to <a href="https://www.gendigital.com/blog/news/company-news/openwallet-foundation">support the work of the OpenWallet Foundation</a>. Beyond the OWF, members of our Digital Trust Services group are also leading work on open standards for digital wallets and trust infrastructure at the World Wide Web Consortium, the Decentralized Identity Foundation and the Trust Over IP Foundation. We’re also a very active contributor to one of the large-scale pilots for the European Digital Identity Wallet Initiative (<a href="https://blog.avast.com/eidas-2.0-avast">eIDAS 2.0</a>), which emphasizes the importance of openness, portability, and interoperability.&nbsp;

We invite you to join us in building a strong and resilient open wallet community.&nbsp;

What the work of the OpenWallet Foundation means for the future and for digital freedom.

The Growing Progress of the Open Wallet Movement 

Today marks the formal launch of the <a href="https://openwallet.foundation/">OpenWallet Foundation</a> (OWF), the first global collaboration on open source code for interoperable, multi-purpose digital wallets. Although it may not be apparent right now, in the future we will look back on this and see it as a very important inflection point for the whole digital ecosystem.&nbsp;

Why? Because the universal digital wallet is going to be a critically important tool that has the potential to allow people to keep their personal data safe and private and build more trusted online relationships.&nbsp;

This is why Gen, the world’s leading consumer Cyber Safety company, worked with the <a href="https://www.linuxfoundation.org/">Linux Foundation</a> to help organize the OWF and contribute as a <a href="https://linuxfoundation.eu/newsroom/linux-foundation-europe-launches-open-wallet">Founding Premier Member.</a>&nbsp;

Our Gen cybersecurity experts have long recognized that the deepest problems in online fraud, misinformation, bot attacks, and other cybercrime were ultimately rooted in the ability of attackers to fake their identities and impersonate legitimate actors.&nbsp;

Although the Internet identity industry has spent 25 years developing public key infrastructure (PKI) and federated identity systems to combat these threats, they have not been able to hold back the massive tide of new AI-driven attacks. What’s worse, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransomware">ransomware-as-a-service</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepfake">deep fakes</a>, and more recently, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChatGPT">rapid advancements in the AI technology</a> are escalating these concerns to a whole new level. It is rapidly becoming all but impossible for an ordinary mortal to determine what is or is not authentic online.&nbsp;

The solution lies in the new model of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-sovereign_identity">decentralized digital identity</a> that, ironically, is based on the same way we have been proving our identity in the real world for centuries: with wallets containing credentials. Only now they will be digital wallets containing digital credentials.&nbsp;

Many smartphone users are already using some form of digital wallet on their devices. However, these are proprietary digital wallets owned and controlled by the vendors of those devices, with a limited set of capabilities and credentials they choose to support.&nbsp;

The future of the Internet — and most importantly of digital freedom — lies in the consumer having their choice of open standard digital wallets. Wallets that can accept digital credentials from any issuer, present them to any verifier, transact over any payment or value exchange network, and help manage your own set of trusted digital relationships — for life. And all of that across all popular platforms, with no walled gardens and vendors lock-ins.&nbsp;

This is the vision and mission of the OpenWallet Foundation: to bring together companies, government agencies, open source projects, and non-profit organizations from around the world to develop the core “engine” that anyone can use to build a secure, privacy-respecting multi-purpose digital wallet.&nbsp;

Our Premier membership in OWF underscores Gen’s commitment to the future of decentralized identity and digital trust infrastructure that we believe will be fundamental to powering Digital Freedom.&nbsp;

Digital wallets offer a future that provides improved privacy and safety for everyone online.

Why Gen is a Founding Premier Member of the OpenWallet Foundation

In September we announced NortonLifeLock and Avast officially coming together as one company. Today, we’re proud to share we’ve accomplished the milestone of joining together with a greater and more powerful mission than ever before. We’ve launched a new company, Gen: For the next generation of digital life.

<h2>Digital life is life</h2>

Think back to when your life started going digital. Some remember what life was like without having access to the internet at all. When you were introduced to technology, you embraced it as a part of your life. For others, a digital footprint was created before you took your first step.

With each generation comes the advancement of technology beyond what could have been imagined. Today, that line between what was digital life and real life is gone. Digital life is life. We work, shop, learn and socialize online. And it’s kept us connected and helped keep us going, beyond what we’d expect.

For those who can remember, there was a time when you could pick up antivirus products at the store and install it on your computer. That was considered sufficient at the time, but the world has irrevocably changed with convenience and connection at our fingertips 24/7. This digital evolution has also created opportunities to expose more of our lives to crime. In fact, <a href="https://www.nortonlifelock.com/us/en/newsroom/press-kits/2022-norton-cyber-safety-insights-report-special-release-online-creeping/">more than half of consumers have experienced a cybercrime</a>. It’s not just our devices that need protection now — it’s our identity and privacy, too.

<h2>Powering Digital Freedom for generations</h2>

Gen’s family of consumer brands is rooted in protecting the first digital generations. And now there’s a new generation — it’s not Gen X, Y, or Z. It’s Gen D. Generation digital. A generation of people linked by being a part of digital life as we know it today.

Today’s technology goes beyond the wildest dreams of previous generations and has helped us unlock endless possibilities, but we’re not free to fully embrace and enjoy them until we’re protected and empowered in all aspects of our digital life.

That’s why we’ve made it our purpose to power Digital Freedom for consumers through Gen’s family of trusted consumer brands: Norton, Avast, LifeLock, Avira, AVG, Reputation Defender and CCleaner. We’re committed to bringing our energy, our smarts and global presence to systematically tackle cyber threats and challenges for this generation and the next.

Separate we were strong. But together, we're setting out to put control, freedom, and empowerment into the hands of hundreds of millions of people around the world. Welcome to Gen.

Ondrej Vlcek

Posts by Ondrej Vlcek

Looking Back at 2023 and Dreaming of 2024

The Growing Progress of the Open Wallet Movement

Why Gen is a Founding Premier Member of the OpenWallet Foundation

Introducing Gen. For the next generation of digital life.