The Linux Foundation and Harvard’s Lab for Innovation Science release census for open-source software security

The Linux Foundation's Core Infrastructure Initiative and Harvard University's Lab for Innovation Science have teamed up on a census of the most critical open-source components in today's production applications. The report [PDF], titled "Vulnerabilities in the core", identified more than 200 projects and details 20 of them. More information can be found in the press release and, of course, the report."This Census II analysis and report represent important steps towards understanding and addressing structural and security complexities in the modern day supply chain where open source is pervasive, but not always understood. Census II identifies the most commonly used free and open source software (FOSS) components in production applications and begins to examine them for potential vulnerabilities, which can inform actions to sustain the long-term security and health of FOSS. Census I (2015) identified which software packages in the Debian Linux distribution were the most critical to the kernel's operation and security."