Barracuda launches AI Data Security to police employee chatbot use

Barracuda Networks has launched Barracuda AI Data Security, a product that monitors and controls the company data employees send to generative AI tools. Detection runs on Barracuda IQ and the product sits on the BarracudaONE platform, with sensitive-data blocking switched on by default from deployment.

The engine applies policy across more than 1,300 generative AI services, including ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and Gemini. Prebuilt detectors scan prompts and uploads for customer records, passwords, financial data and proprietary source code, and hold them back before they reach an outside model. It also flags prompt injection, jailbreak attempts, hate speech and banned topics, aligned to the OWASP Top 10 for large language model applications.

Barracuda is aiming the product at smaller companies and the managed service providers that support them, arguing most governance tooling in the category is built for large enterprises. Every AI interaction lands in an audit log that exports in one click, and policies can be set per team, per tool and per data type. Managed service providers get multitenant management across customer accounts.

The company also released survey results 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, against 38% across all respondents. Barracuda AI Data Security becomes available in October and is included at no additional cost in Barracuda SecureEdge Premium Access.