Open Source Security

Josh talks to Kat Cosgrove about a how companies should be treating open source more like their critical infrastructure than free stuff. Kat has a ton of knowledge about how the interactions between companies and open source communities can work well, or not work at all. Kat's time on the Kubernetes Release Team. We touch on how a project like Kubernetes is super successful, while another, Ingress NGINX, was not. It's a super insightful discussion with a ton of lessons and advice for everyone. The show notes and blog post for this episode can be found at https://opensourcesecurity.io/2026/2026-05-open-source-infrastructure-kat/

Josh has a discussion with Vlad-Stefan Harbuz about the Open Source Pledge as well as his recent FOSDEM talk. The Open Source Pledge is all about trying to build a sustainable universe for open source maintainers. This ties into Vlad's FOSDEM talk which was all about the challenge of just knowing what open source you are using. The importance of trying to make open source sustainable is a really important topic, but it's also a really hard topic. Vlad helps explain all of this as well as some ideas for the solving this in the future. The show notes and blog post for this episode can be found at https://opensourcesecurity.io/2026/2026-04-open-source-pledge-vlad/

Josh talks to Paul McCarty of Open Source Malware about ... open source malware. Paul explains why there aren't many good open source malware datasets. We discuss why the existing data is lacking for many use cases. We of course touch on AI and the malware in skills problems and challenges. It's a fun discussion with a lot of new and interesting problems we all have to deal with. The show notes and blog post for this episode can be found at https://opensourcesecurity.io/2026/2026-04-open-source-malware-paul-mccarty/

Josh talks to Michael Winser about a talk he gave at FOSDEM as well as his work on Alpha Omega at the Linux Foundation. Michael is approaching open source security in a way that nobody has ever tried before. What if we could fund some really big, really hard projects? It's not cheap or easy, but he's getting it done. We spend a lot of the time discussing package registries, which are a huge topic. Michael is doing some amazing work helping package registries which is the first step in a very long journey. The show notes and blog post for this episode can be found at https://opensourcesecurity.io/2026/2026-03-michael-winser/

Josh talks to Luke Hinds, CEO of Always Further, about MCP and agent security. We start out talking about Luke's new tool, nono which is a sandboxing tool that has AI agents in mind as a use case. We explain what MCP and agents are doing as well as why it's so hard to secure them. It's not impossible, but it's not simple either. We end the show by discussing some of the more human aspects to security and how history may be repeating itself with security folks laughing at new users who don't know any better. The show notes and blog post for this episode can be found at https://opensourcesecurity.io/2026/2026-03-mcp-agent-luke/

Josh talks to Sylvestre Ledru about the Rust coreutils project. We've been using GNU coreutils for decades now, and the goal of Rust coreutils is to rewrite these utilities in Rust. The primary reason isn't security, it's to modernize the code and attract new contributors. Sylvestre discusses with quite pleasant relationship with the GNU coreutils developers, some of the challenges in the project. What Ubuntu using this by default meant, and also gives us some things to watch for in the future. It's a super fun discussion about why Rust is not only awesome, but also the future. The show notes and blog post for this episode can be found at https://opensourcesecurity.io/2026/2026-03-rust-coreutils-sylvestre-ledru/

Josh chats with Olle E. Johansson about the Global Vulnerability Intelligence Platform (GVIP). It's no secret the current vulnerability systems are reaching a breaking point. Olle is one of the few people with a long term vision instead of trying to just fix the short term problems. His GVIP ideas are very good, but it's a community effort and needs our help. Give it a listen and if it sounds interesting, come help us out! The show notes and blog post for this episode can be found at https://opensourcesecurity.io/2026/2026-02-GVIP-olle-johansson/

Josh talks to David Bernstein about the world of crisis management and business continuity. David is a certified emergency manager and tell us about preparing for both digital and physical disruptions. Everything is IT now, so the way we think about disaster preparedness is changing. We talk about understanding risks, creating plans, and the role of practice in the world of crisis management. This is a super interesting universe and Dave was very patient and kind. I learned a lot and can't wait for Dave to come back. The show notes and blog post for this episode can be found at https://opensourcesecurity.io/2026/2026-02-crisis-management-david-bernstein/

Josh discusses Suricata with Victor Julien, the founder and lead developer of the project. Victor explains the history of the project, its impact on cybersecurity, and the community that keeps it all running. Challenges like encrypted traffic and the evolution of open-source projects. Victor even gives us a glimpse into what he sees as the future of the project. There's a lot to learn about Suricata in this one. The show notes and blog post for this episode can be found at https://opensourcesecurity.io/2026/2026-01-suricata-victor-julien/

Josh chats with Xe Iaso, the creator of Anubis the web AI firewall. We discuss how Anubis is tackling bots and scrapers. The discussion around the scrapers is fascinating and challenging, these things are everywhere and don't behave very nicely. There's also discussion about running a successful open source project. Xe has a lot of experience to share with us, you're going to learn something new with this one. The show notes and blog post for this episode can be found at https://opensourcesecurity.io/2026/2026-01-anubis-xe/

Josh welcomes back Daniel Thompson explore the rather silly question of whether Santa Claus needs to be compliant with the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA). This episode was intended to be silly, but it ended up being an incredibly interesting conversation. Daniel explained a great deal about how the CRA works and how it could apply to Santa Claus. The TL;DR is even if he's giving out free stuff, the CRA almost certainly applies. Daniel also fills us in on his book (you can email Josh to enter into a drawing for a copy), and his work on web browsers for the CRA. It's an incredibly informative discussion. The show notes and blog post for this episode can be found at https://opensourcesecurity.io/2025/2025-12-daniel-cra-santa/

Josh discusses updating open source dependencies with Jamie Tanna. Jamie works on Renovate which gives them a lot of insight into the challenges of keeping your open source updated. We discuss the challenges of semantic versioning, supply chain security, and AI-generated code. If you're new or old to the world of open source dependencies, there's something to learn from this chat. The show notes and blog post for this episode can be found at https://opensourcesecurity.io/2025/2025-12-renovate-jamie

In this episode Seth Larson gives us a cornucopia of topics relating to Python security. Seth discusses the Python Software Foundation's decision to reject a significant grant NSF. Diversity is a big deal to python, so this was a no brainier. We discuss the upcoming PyCon US conference, featuring a new security track that fosters collaboration between developers and security experts. Josh is a huge fan of having a security track at developer conferences. And we close on a paper about zip and tar archives Seth wrote. It seems like we should have zip and tar security figured out by now, but we don't. Thankfully Seth is working on it. The show notes and blog post for this episode can be found at https://opensourcesecurity.io/2025/2025-11-python-security-seth-larson/