Linux Security a National Matter
U.S. taxpayers are now helping to improve open source software code and security thanks to a grant issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Stanford University, Symantec and source code analysis firm Coverity are the three recipients of a DHS grant called "Vulnerability Discovery and Remediation Open Source Hardening Project." The grant will pay $1.24 million over three years.
According to Coverity, the DHS project is part of a broad DHS federal initiative to help secure and protect critical national communications and computer infrastructure. More than 40 open source software projects, including Linux, Apache, FreeBSD, MySQL, PostgreSQL and Mozilla, are expected to benefit from the effort.
Rob Rachwald, senior director of marketing at Coverity, explained that each of the three companies involved in the DHS effort has a specific role to play.
Coverity is the technology engine that finds the quality problems and security vulnerabilities. Stanford will be providing the manpower and some of the brain power to understand what the trends are and make some conclusions about what various packages are good for and are safe to use.
