OpenSSF and Linux Foundation at White House Summit: Open Source Software Supply Chain Security in Focus

At the White House Open Source Security Summit held recently (January 13, 2022 local time) in Washington, D.C., tech giants, developers, and key partners in the business ecosystem from the open source software space, leaders of U.S. federal agencies and The experts discussed the topic of "Challenges in the Open Source Software Supply Chain and How to Reduce Risk and Enhance Resilience".

As an important moment in the history of the Linux Foundation's partnership with public sector organizations, this conference brings together the Linux Foundation and the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) on behalf of hundreds of communities and projects to bring their collective efforts to cybersecurity. The institute's efforts also share the opportunity for them to collaborate with public and private administrations.

At the conference, Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, said: "Protecting critical infrastructure includes protecting the software that runs its banking, energy, defense, healthcare and technology systems. When a widely used open source component or application is When security is compromised, every company, every country, and every community is affected. This is not a problem unique to the U.S. government, but a global one. We appreciate the government's leadership in promoting greater focus on open source software security and look forward to working with the global ecosystem to make progress. It is worth mentioning that OpenSSF is a key initiative in our response to the challenges of the open source software supply chain, and our work was recognized by other participants at the conference and served as a basis for further collaboration , which is very exciting.”

Brian Behlendorf, executive director of the Open Source Security Foundation, commented: "At today's meeting, we shared a set of key opportunities where, with sufficient commitment from everyone, we can have a strong commitment to protecting and improving our software. The critical effort required for supply chain security has a substantial impact. The open source ecosystem needs to work together to further cybersecurity research, training, analysis, and fixing flaws found in key open source software projects. Positive feedback on these initiatives , there is a growing collective commitment to meaningful action. In the wake of the recent Log4j crisis, the time for public and private collaboration is more urgent than ever to secure open source software components and the software supply chains through which they flow Demonstrate the highest cybersecurity integrity."

Brian added: "OpenSSF has impacted many of the key areas discussed in today's meeting through our Best Practices Working Group, Identifying Key Projects Working Group, Metrics and Scorecards, the Sigstore Project, and other upcoming work. We have Be prepared for further efforts and welcome all new participants and resources that this and further dialogues may bring."

Since the "shattering" vulnerability of Log4j in December last year, many governments and technology giants around the world have paid attention to and reflected on the impact of security vulnerabilities. At the same time, discussions on the security issues of open source software have become more and more more urgent.