OpenSSF sings a Siren song to steer developers away from buggy FOSS

OpenSSF sings a Siren song to steer developers away from buggy FOSS

May 20, 2024 at 07:14PM

The Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) launches OpenSSF Siren, aiming to share threat intelligence and fill the gap between open-source and enterprise communities. It seeks to provide real-time security warnings, community-driven knowledge base, and encourage sign-ups from FOSS developers and security teams. The initiative focuses on sharing attack tactics and indicators of compromise, not disclosing new flaws to keep the open-source community informed.

From the meeting notes:

1. Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) has initiated a new vulnerability info-sharing effort called OpenSSF Siren. This group aims to aggregate and disseminate threat intelligence to provide real-time security warning bulletins and deliver a community-driven knowledge base.

2. The goal of SIREN is to complement and augment existing channels of information such as project blogs and advisories for broader audiences in the open-source and enterprise communities.

3. OpenSSF hopes to share tactics, techniques, and procedures being used by those who attack open source software, as well as indicators of compromise associated with recent incidents, without intending to disclose new flaws. This is intended to serve as a “post-disclosure means of keeping the community informed of threats and activities after the initial sharing and coordination.”

4. Security issues in open source software have become increasingly important in light of high-profile software supply chain attacks, and there is a growing concern about vulnerabilities present in widely used code.

5. The OpenJS Foundation recently received suspicious emails from individuals attempting to gain access to the maintainer lists for several JavaScript projects it hosts, highlighting the need for vigilance in the open source community.

6. A study by Synopsys found that over 96 percent of the code bases they considered contained open source code, with 84 percent including an open-source component with at least one vulnerability, emphasizing the need for a centralized platform to exchange threat intelligence efficiently.

Overall, the notes suggest a growing recognition of the need for improved security measures and threat intelligence sharing within the open source community, as highlighted by the OpenSSF Siren initiative and recent incidents in the industry.

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