Siren is a new mailing list by the OpenSSF which aims to monitor the threat landscape of open-source project vulnerabilities in order to provide real time alerts to anyone subscribed.

This is yet another stepping stone in OpenSSF's ongoing campaign for sane software security.This mailing list is addressed literally to anyone; as we described in "The State Of Secure Software Development - Three OpenSSF Courses"

Nowadays every company is a software house regardless of the business it is in be it finance, manufacturing or healthcare. To provide value, businesses have to communicate through software applications built in-house or by a third party.

The problem is that cyberattackers will attack those applications, probing them to uncover vulnerabilities to exploit and get access to your internal networks, steal company and customer data or just create havoc.

Since the whole industry relies heavily on Open Source Software to power everything, from modern servers, to IoT, to the desktops at work, real time alerts on 0-days are more than welcome.

Take for instance the OpenSSL library which really is the cornerstone of todays internet-based communication and as such bugs in it like the infamous HeartBleed compromise the very fabric of society.Wouldn't be prudent for the discovery of the bug to perpetrate as soon as possible to the information highways?

That's what this list is trying to do.The problem is that despite a few enterprises foster intelligence sharing structures, this does not always extend to the upstream open source community so there must be a means of communicating information about exploits efficiently with the broader downstream audience.

But the alerting aside, Siren is also intended to be a post-disclosure means of keeping the community informed of threats and activities after the initial sharing and coordination. As such its key features include:

• Open Source Threat Intelligence: shared with the community about actively exploited public vulnerabilities and threats.
• Real-Time Updates: List members receive notifications via email about emerging threats which may be relevant to their projects, enabling swift action to mitigate risks.
• Effective unrestricted transparent communication; the list follows the Traffic Light Protocol (TLP), Clear guidelines for the sharing and handling of intelligence.
• Community-driven: Contributors from diverse backgrounds collaborate to enrich the intelligence database, fostering a culture of shared responsibility and collective defense.

So go ahead and register for a free account to be informed, collaborate and share your experiences.
In doing this simple thing you'll have chipped in securing the software just a little bit too.

More Information

Enhancing Open Source Security: Introducing Siren by OpenSSF

Related Articles

The State Of Secure Software Development - Three OpenSSF Courses

European Union Will Pay For Finding Bugs In Open Source Software

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