CrowdStrike to Buy Fiddler AI and Dreadnode to Secure AI Agents

CrowdStrike has agreed to buy two AI security startups, Fiddler AI and Dreadnode, in deals reportedly worth about $495 million combined. The cybersecurity company announced both on November 3, 2026, at its Fal.Con Europe conference in Barcelona, alongside a new “AI Kill Switch” for stopping rogue AI agents. The moves are aimed at companies that are putting AI agents to work and need to know what those agents are doing, and how to stop them.

What did CrowdStrike announce?

CrowdStrike signed definitive agreements to acquire:

• Fiddler AI, which monitors AI agents and explains their behaviour.
• Dreadnode, which tests AI models, applications and agents for security weaknesses before they launch.

CrowdStrike did not disclose what it is paying. The Wall Street Journal reported a price of about $400 million for Fiddler and about $95 million for Dreadnode, according to CyberScoop and SecurityWeek. CrowdStrike said it will pay mostly in cash, plus some stock that vests over time. Both deals are expected to close in its fourth quarter of fiscal 2027, subject to standard conditions.

What does Fiddler AI do?

Fiddler tracks what AI agents do and the reasoning behind each action. That lets companies review an agent’s activity and show it stayed within its assigned task. CrowdStrike will sell the technology as Falcon Observe within its Falcon platform. Fiddler says its purpose-built models can cut the cost of evaluating AI behaviour by up to 98%.

CrowdStrike chief executive George Kurtz described Fiddler as a flight recorder for every agent. He argued that when a regulator or a board asks what an agent did, saying “the model did it” is not an acceptable answer. Fiddler’s chief executive and co-founder is Krishna Gade.

What does Dreadnode do?

Dreadnode attacks AI systems on purpose, in testing, to find flaws before real attackers do. It runs more than 100 known AI attack strategies, including jailbreaks and prompt injection, against models, agent reasoning loops, applications and MCP servers. Its findings are mapped to industry frameworks such as the OWASP Top 10 for large language models, MITRE ATLAS and NIST’s AI Risk Management Framework.

Dreadnode’s team, led by chief executive Brad Palm, will join CrowdStrike’s research group. Palm said AI fails in ways that traditional software testing was never built to catch.

What is the AI Kill Switch?

CrowdStrike also launched an AI Kill Switch inside Falcon Guardian, its AI security product, available immediately. An authorised administrator can use it to:

• stop a rogue AI agent where it is running,
• block it from relaunching, and
• cut off its access to the company network.

Every action is logged. The feature works at the network gateway first, with support on individual devices coming later, according to The Next Web.

Why it matters

Companies are rapidly giving AI agents access to email, files, code and business systems. That creates a new security problem: an agent that makes a mistake, or is tricked by a malicious prompt, can act at machine speed. Security vendors are racing to offer tools that watch, test and control agents, and buying specialist startups is the fastest route.

The deals continue a wave of acquisitions in AI agent technology. This week, contact centre company Five9 also agreed to buy an AI agent firm, as we reported in our story on Five9’s $325 million Level AI deal. For the startup side of the same trend, see our coverage of Serval’s $150 million Series C.

What happens next?

Falcon Observe and Dreadnode’s testing product are due in CrowdStrike’s fourth fiscal quarter of 2027, after the deals close. Until then, Fiddler and Dreadnode continue as separate companies. Customers can start using the AI Kill Switch now through Falcon Guardian.