Alex Stamos Joins Cognition to Make AI Security Affordable

Alex Stamos became Cognition’s chief information security officer on September 24, 2024. He brings senior cybersecurity experience to the company behind Devin. Why does the appointment matter? AI is driving down the cost of building software — and the cost of launching cyberattacks. Meanwhile, the strongest defensive tools stay concentrated among wealthy companies and governments.

Why did Alex Stamos join Cognition?

Stamos signed on to do two things: protect Cognition’s own systems from cyberattacks, and build security products that a broader set of organisations can actually use. Before this role, he’d spent years in senior cybersecurity positions across major technology companies and security firms. As first reported by Thenextweb, he framed the move as a practical response to attackers using AI — not a reason to panic.

> “There are real safety and security issues raised by AI, but they can be fixed. It’s time to get to work instead of freaking out.” The central task is to turn AI security from a specialist capability into a product that ordinary organisations can afford. That goal lines up with what Cognition does: build software agents that operate inside cloud-based development environments.

What security risks is Cognition addressing?

AI systems help attackers discover software weaknesses, automate repetitive tasks and expand campaigns faster. Ransomware groups could automate more stages of an attack, from finding targets to exploiting vulnerabilities and managing disruption. And the concern doesn’t stop at Cognition.

Frontier AI models are getting better at spotting serious bugs. But cost, infrastructure and expertise keep access to those systems limited. So smaller companies stay dependent on traditional security processes while better-funded organisations gain advanced defensive automation. Cognition’s security work therefore sits at the intersection of product protection and wider cyber defence.

What is Cognition’s Devin AI software engineer?

Cognition introduced Devin in March 2024 as an AI software engineer built to handle complex engineering tasks autonomously. It works through cloud-based developer environments, where it can assist with coding and other parts of a software workflow. Co-founder and CEO Scott Wu leads the company, alongside co-founders Steven Hao and Walden Yan.

Its development has pulled in substantial investor attention: Founders Fund led Cognition’s Series A funding round in April 2024, valuing the startup at $2 billion. Devin’s capabilities make security a built-in requirement rather than a separate public-relations concern. Think about what an autonomous agent touches — code, development tools, cloud environments. All of it has to be defended against stolen credentials, malicious instructions, unsafe code changes and attacks on the infrastructure surrounding it.