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Open Source Security Foundation

The Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) is a cross-industry, vendor-neutral collaboration under The Linux Foundation focused on improving the security of the open source software ecosystem (software supply chain security).

  • Collaborative industry forum for open source software security (software supply chain security)
  • Hosts working groups and projects on secure development practices, tooling, and education (application security)
  • Develops and promotes best practices, standards, and guidelines for producers and consumers of open source (security governance and compliance)
  • Coordinates efforts on vulnerability disclosure, tooling, and data for open source components (vulnerability management)
  • Provides a neutral governance and funding structure for security-related open source initiatives (open source program governance)

More About Open Source Security Foundation

The Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) is a collaborative initiative hosted by The Linux Foundation that focuses on the security of open source software across the software supply chain (software supply chain security). It brings together software vendors, cloud providers, end-user organizations, public sector entities, and open source communities to coordinate work on common security challenges. The foundation operates as a neutral forum where stakeholders can align on practices, tooling, and data that help reduce risks associated with consuming and producing open source components.

OpenSSF structures its work through dedicated working groups and technical initiatives that address specific aspects of open source security (application security). These areas include secure software development practices, security tooling for maintainers and enterprises, education and training for developers, and frameworks for evaluating project security posture. The foundation supports the creation and maintenance of shared resources such as guidelines, checklists, training material, and reference frameworks that organizations can adopt within their internal software development life cycles (SDLC security).

The foundation also coordinates efforts related to vulnerability reporting and disclosure in open source projects (vulnerability management). This includes promoting processes and norms for handling security reports, improving discoverability of security information for widely used components, and supporting mechanisms for communicating risk and remediation guidance to downstream consumers. Through these activities, OpenSSF seeks to make vulnerability handling in open source more predictable and manageable for enterprises that depend on diverse component inventories.

In enterprise environments, OpenSSF outputs are used as reference inputs for security policies, secure coding standards, Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM), and Open Source Program Office (OSPO) practices (security governance and compliance). Organizations Marketing Automation Platform (MAP) OpenSSF practices and frameworks into internal control catalogs, developer training programs, and software supply chain oversight. Because the foundation focuses on vendor-neutral artifacts, its guidance and tooling can be integrated into heterogeneous environments that span multiple languages, platforms, and cloud providers (multi-platform security tooling).

From an architectural perspective, OpenSSF positions itself at the policy, process, and tooling layer above individual programming languages or runtimes (security architecture and frameworks). It concentrates on cross-cutting concerns such as dependency management, provenance, build integrity, verification, and secure release processes. This supports interoperability between tooling ecosystems and aligns with broader industry efforts around software bills of materials (SBOM) and supply chain assurance, as described in materials from The Linux Foundation.

Within an enterprise technical taxonomy, OpenSSF fits into security governance, application security, and software Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) categories. It functions as a coordinating body that hosts projects, reference material, and collaborative workstreams rather than a single monolithic software product. Technical stakeholders can reference OpenSSF work products when designing security controls, evaluating open source risk posture, or aligning multi-team practices around secure use and maintenance of open source components.