AhnLab to Transform Into an AI-Native Security Platform Company, Invest KRW 100 Billion Over 3 Years
IT DAILY ·
✦ AI Summary
On the 16th, AhnLab held the "AhnLab AI Vision Declaration Press Conference" and officially announced its transition to an "AI-native security platform company."
AhnLab said that attackers' use of AI has sharply expanded the speed and scale of intrusions, while the limitations of existing defense systems have grown, and it presented an integrated operating system based on Agentic AI as its strategy.
AhnLab unveiled its next-generation AI integrated brand, "AhnLab AI PLUS," and its platform roadmap, and said it will invest KRW 100 billion in AI infrastructure and R&D over the next 3 years.
On the 16th, AhnLab held the "AhnLab AI Vision Declaration Press Conference" and officially announced its transition to an "AI-native security platform company." AhnLab CEO Kang Seok-gyun said in a presentation at the event that the company will move away from the approach of adding some AI features to existing security solutions. He said AhnLab will redesign its products, data, and operating systems around AI.
AhnLab cited the rapid expansion in both the speed and scale of intrusions driven by attackers' use of AI as the background for the transition. It also said existing defense systems face limitations due to fragmented security products and manual work by personnel. Accordingly, AhnLab unveiled a strategy to overcome these limitations with an integrated operating system based on Agentic AI.
Along with this transition, AhnLab unveiled its next-generation AI integrated brand, "AhnLab AI PLUS." It also announced its platform roadmap. As part of its investment plan, the company said it will concentrate KRW 100 billion over the next 3 years to strengthen AI infrastructure and R&D capabilities.
As a mid- to long-term goal, AhnLab set out a target of reaching KRW 1 trillion in sales by 2035 and surpassing a 30% share of global sales. The photo from the announcement was taken by reporter Kwon Young-seok.
AhnLab CEO Kang Seok-gyun said AI is fundamentally changing the economics and productivity structure of cyberattacks. He explained that the speed of attack expansion has increased 65% year over year, AI-based attacks have surged 89% year over year, and AI is directly carrying out 80% to 90% of major cyberattack campaigns.
In response, Kang said AhnLab has evolved from a PC antivirus company into integrated endpoint and network security and a cloud platform. He added that AhnLab is pursuing a shift in the security paradigm to "AI-native," in which products and services are redesigned from scratch around AI.
AhnLab unveiled "AhnLab AI PLUS" as the implementation model for this effort. "AhnLab AI PLUS" is a platform architecture that organically connects AhnLab's technologies and portfolio, and it has been structured into a total of 5 layers.
"AhnLab AI PLUS" includes a "security data fabric" based on the normalization and connection of endpoint, network, cloud, email, and account data; "integrated security" that ties EPP, EDR, and cloud protection into a single system; "exposure and access management" to preemptively block attack surfaces and threat exposure; "AI-native operations" that carry out monitoring and response based on collaboration among multiple specialized AI agents; and "AI decision intelligence" that makes decisions based on its own LLM and knowledge base.
AhnLab will launch "AhnLab AI PLUS SecOps," its core operational platform for customer-facing use, on December 1. Kim Chang-hee, a division head at AhnLab, explained that the platform is an end-to-end security operations structure in which threat triage, correlation analysis, investigation, and response agents operate under the direction of an orchestrator agent.
Kim said the goal is to ease the operational burden on organizations that lack specialized personnel. He explained that AhnLab has adopted a hybrid strategy in which it first offers the service as SaaS while also supporting on-premises deployment in consideration of Korea's infrastructure environment.
AhnLab also fleshed out its mid- to long-term investment and global strategy. To enable a rapid transformation of its fundamentals, the company plans to invest KRW 100 billion over the next 3 years in AI computing infrastructure and securing specialized R&D talent. It also set a target of annual revenue of KRW 1 trillion and a 30% share of global sales by 2035 by combining growth in its existing security business, a shift to a SaaS subscription model, global partnerships, and strategic M&A.
CEO Kang defined AhnLab AI PLUS as AhnLab's "Next Chapter." He said the company intends to grow based on responsible innovation. He also set out the goal of becoming the "AI-native security platform company" that customers think of first when they face security challenges in the AI era.
A Q&A session followed. Attendees included AhnLab's Lee Seung-gyeong, Han Chang-gyu, CEO Kang Seok-gyun, Lee Sang-guk, and Kim Chang-hee. The photo was taken by reporter Kwon Young-seok.
The Q&A focused on the realistic basis for the 2035 revenue target of KRW 1 trillion and the company's overseas expansion strategy. In response, AhnLab said its current revenue scale is around KRW 300 billion and that the premise is sustained annual growth of around 15% each year. It added that if new business investment is combined with strategic M&A at home and abroad, it believes reaching KRW 1 trillion in revenue by 2035 is possible.
It also said that after its founding, it took 17 years to reach KRW 100 billion in revenue, 10 years to reach KRW 200 billion, and 4 years to reach KRW 300 billion. Given that growth trend, it said it does not view the 2035 revenue target of KRW 1 trillion as unrealistic.
The company said its overseas business base centers on its subsidiaries in China and Japan and its JV in Saudi Arabia. It added that it plans to build cyber defense centers in Asia and the Middle East in the future. It also explained that it plans to provide localized security tailored to each country's data sovereignty requirements.
As SaaS environments have become widespread in global markets, AhnLab said it has been preparing for a transition to SaaS aimed at overseas expansion since the launch of "AhnLab XDR" 3 years ago. However, regarding the transition to SaaS in Korea's public and financial markets, it said it is taking into account the distinct characteristics of domestic enterprise and public infrastructure.
AhnLab said it is maintaining a two-track, or hybrid, development strategy that supports both on-premises and SaaS, unlike global vendors. It also said it plans to support flexible adoption tailored to customers' regulatory requirements and policy environments.
On competitiveness in improving Agentic AI's judgment accuracy and reducing false positives, AhnLab said it has accumulated the maximum level of know-how for analyzing large-scale security events and incidents that have occurred in Korea, centered on V3. It also explained that for AI inference, live feedback data from real-time monitoring and incident response experts is more important than knowledge in structured databases.
AhnLab said it is continuously training and tuning its AI models with situational judgment and response know-how from on-site analysts. It also explained that it is securing competitiveness based on data that cannot be collected externally.
Source: IT DAILY · Kwon Young-seok
Original: https://www.itdaily.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=241664
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Source: IT DAILY
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