Ian Riopel, CEO and Co-Founding father of Root.io, leads the corporate’s mission to safe the software program provide chain with cloud-native options. With over 15 years in tech and cybersecurity, he has held management roles at Slim.AI and FXP, specializing in enterprise gross sales, go-to-market technique, and public sector progress. He holds an ACE from MIT Sloan and is a graduate of the U.S. Military Intelligence Faculty.
Root.io is a cloud-native safety platform designed to assist enterprises safe their software program provide chain. By automating belief and compliance throughout growth pipelines, Root.io allows sooner, extra dependable software program supply for contemporary DevOps groups.
What impressed the founding of Root, and the way did the thought for Automated Vulnerability Remediation (AVR) come about?
Root was born from a deep frustration we repeatedly confronted firsthand: organizations dedicating huge quantities of time and assets to chasing vulnerabilities that by no means totally went away. Triage had change into the one protection in opposition to quickly accruing CVE technical debt, however with the speed of rising vulnerabilities, triage alone merely is not sufficient anymore.
As maintainers of Slim Toolkit (previously DockerSlim), we had been already deeply engaged in container optimization and safety. It was pure for us to ask: What if containers may proactively repair themselves as a part of the usual software program growth lifecycle? Automated fixing, now generally known as Automated Vulnerability Remediation (“AVR”), was our resolution—an method not centered on triage and checklist constructing, however routinely eliminates them, instantly in your software program, with out introducing breaking adjustments.
Root was previously generally known as Slim.AI—what prompted the rebrand, and the way did the corporate evolve throughout that transition?
Slim.AI started as a software to assist builders reduce and optimize containers. However we quickly realized our expertise had advanced into one thing way more impactful: a strong platform able to proactively securing software program for manufacturing at scale. The rebrand to Root captures this transformative shift—from a developer optimization software to a strong safety resolution that empowers any group to satisfy rigorous safety calls for round open-source software program in minutes. Root embodies our mission: attending to the foundation of software program danger and remediating vulnerabilities earlier than they ever change into incidents.
You have obtained a workforce with deep roots in cybersecurity, from Cisco, Trustwave, and Snyk. How did your collective expertise form the DNA of Root?
Our workforce has constructed safety scanners, defended world enterprises, and architected options for a few of the most delicate and high-stakes infrastructures. We have grappled instantly with the trade-offs between pace, safety, and developer expertise. This collective expertise essentially formed Root’s DNA. We’re obsessive about automation and integration—not merely figuring out safety points however fixing them swiftly with out creating new friction. Our expertise informs each choice, guaranteeing that safety accelerates innovation relatively than slows it down.
Root claims to patch container vulnerabilities in seconds—no rebuilds, no downtime. How does your AVR expertise truly work beneath the hood?
AVR works instantly on the container layer, swiftly figuring out susceptible packages and patching or changing them inside the picture itself—with out requiring advanced rebuilds. Consider it as seamlessly hot-swapping susceptible code snippets with safe replacements whereas preserving your dependencies, layers, and runtime behaviors. No extra ready on upstream patches, no must re-architect your pipelines. It is remediation on the pace of innovation.
Are you able to clarify what units Root other than different safety options like Chainguard or Rapidfort? What’s your edge on this house?
In contrast to Chainguard, which mandates rebuilds utilizing curated pictures, or Rapidfort, which shrinks assault surfaces with out instantly addressing vulnerabilities, Root instantly patches your current container pictures. We seamlessly combine into your pipeline with out disruption—no friction, no handoffs. We’re not right here to interchange your workflow, we’re right here to speed up and improve it. Each picture that runs by Root basically turns into a golden picture—totally secured, clear, managed–delivering speedy ROI by slashing vulnerabilities and saving time. Our platform cuts remediation from weeks or days to simply 120-180 seconds, enabling firms in extremely regulated industries to remove months-long vulnerability backlogs in a single session.
Builders ought to be centered on constructing and transport new merchandise – not spending hours fixing safety vulnerabilities, a time-consuming and infrequently dreaded side of software program growth that stalls innovation. Worse, many of those vulnerabilities aren’t even their very own – they stem from weaknesses in third-party distributors or open-source software program initiatives, forcing groups to spend beneficial hours fixing another person’s downside.
Builders and R&D groups are among the many largest price facilities in any group, each by way of human assets and the software program and cloud infrastructure that helps them. Root alleviates this burden by leveraging agentic AI, relatively than counting on groups of builders working across the clock to manually examine and patch recognized vulnerabilities.
How does Root particularly leverage agentic AI to automate and streamline the vulnerability remediation course of?
Our AVR engine makes use of agentic AI to copy the thought processes and actions of a seasoned safety engineer—quickly assessing CVE impression, figuring out the perfect out there patches, rigorously testing, and safely making use of fixes. It accomplishes in seconds what would in any other case require important guide effort, scaling throughout hundreds of pictures concurrently. Each remediation teaches the system, constantly enhancing its effectiveness and adaptableness, basically embedding the experience of a full-time safety engineer instantly into your pictures.
How does Root combine into current developer workflows with out including friction?
Root effortlessly integrates into current workflows, plugging instantly into your container registry or pipeline—no rebasing, no new brokers, and no extra sidecars. Builders push pictures as regular, and Root handles patching and publishing up to date pictures seamlessly in place or as new tags. Our resolution stays invisible till wanted, providing full visibility by detailed audit trails, complete SBOMs, and easy rollback choices when desired.
How do you steadiness automation and management? For groups that need visibility and oversight, how customizable is Root?
At Root, automation enhances—not diminishes—management. Our platform is extremely customizable, permitting groups to scale the extent of automation to their particular wants. You determine what to auto-apply, when to contain guide evaluate, and what to exclude. We offer in depth visibility by detailed diff views, changelogs, and impression analyses, guaranteeing safety groups stay knowledgeable and empowered, by no means left at midnight.
With hundreds of vulnerabilities fastened routinely, how do you guarantee stability and keep away from breaking dependencies or disrupting manufacturing?
Stability and reliability underpin each motion that Root’s AVR takes. By default, we undertake a conservative method, meticulously monitoring dependency graphs, using compatibility-aware patches, and rigorously testing each remediated picture in opposition to all publicly out there testing frameworks for open-source initiatives earlier than deployment. Ought to a difficulty ever come up, it is caught early, and rollback is easy. In observe, we’ve maintained lower than a 0.1% failure price throughout hundreds of automated remediations.
As AI advances, so do potential assault surfaces. How is Root getting ready for rising AI-era safety threats?
We view AI as each a possible risk vector and a defensive superpower. Root is proactively embedding resilience instantly into the software program provide chain, guaranteeing that containerized workloads—together with advanced AI/ML stacks—are constantly hardened. Our agentic AI evolves as threats evolve, autonomously adapting defenses sooner than attackers can act. Our final objective is autonomous software program provide chain resilience: infrastructure that defends itself on the pace of rising threats.
Thanks for the nice interview, readers who want to be taught extra ought to go to Root.io.