What's in the SOSS? An OpenSSF Podcast

In this episode of What’s in the SOSS? host Sally Cooper sits down with Yesenia Yser, co-lead of the OpenSSF Mentorship Program and the BEAR Working Group, and Kairo De Araujo, Open Source Software Engineer and mentor for rstuf. They dive into the success of the OpenSSF Mentorship Program, which focuses on bringing underrepresented voices into software security. Kairo shares an incredible outcome from the last cycle – where two out of three mentees became project maintainers – while Yesenia discusses the evolution of the BEAR Working Group (Belonging, Empowerment, Allyship, and Representation) mentorship program. Whether you are a potential mentor or a mentee looking to break into open source, this episode provides a roadmap for the upcoming paid mentorship cycle.

Important Dates for the 2026 Mentorship Cycle:
Applications Open: March 24, 2026
Applications Close: April 12, 2026
Selection Period: April 13 – April 30, 2026
Notification Date: May 1, 2026
Onboarding: May 5 – May 29, 2026
Mentorship Period: June 1 – August 21, 2026
Chapters:
00:01 – Welcome
01:43 – Kairo on his work with the Repository Service for TUF (RSTUFF).
02:30 – Yesenia on the BEAR Working Group and making open source accessible.
04:30 – The "Why" behind mentorship: Solving the barrier to entry for security beginners.
07:28 – Success strategies: Working as a team across time zones with multiple mentees.
09:28 – The ultimate goal: Moving mentees from learners to official project maintainers.
10:58 – Challenges and growing pains: Managing deadlines and interview chaos.
13:48 – Advice for Mentors: The importance of clear communication and flexibility.
15:02 – Advice for Mentees: Don't be afraid to join; focus on "pre-onboarding".
17:13 – Key Dates for the 2026 Mentorship Cycle.
20:15 – Call to Action: Get to know this year’s participating projects (gittuf, rstuf, SBOMit, Minder) and how to get involved.

Episode links:
Yesenia Yser LinkedIn page
Kairo De Araujo LinkedIn page
LFX Mentorships
BEAR Working Group
OpenSSF Participating Projects for 2026 Mentorship ProgramRepository Service for TUF (rstuf)
gittuf
SBOMit
Minder

BEAR Working Group Welcome Calls YouTube Playlist
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Hannah Braswell and Jenn Power, security engineers from Red Hat and contributors to the OpenSSF, join host Sally Cooper to discuss the Gemara project. Gemara, an acronym for GRC Engineering Model for Automated Risk Assessment, is a seven-layer logical model that aims to solve the problem of incompatibility in the GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) stack. By outlining a separation of concerns, the project seeks to enable engineers to build secure and compliant systems without needing to be compliance experts. The speakers explain how Gemara grew organically to seven layers and connects with other open source initiatives like the OpenSSF Security Baseline and Finos Common Cloud Controls. They also touch on the ecosystem of tools being built, including Queue schemas and a Go SDK, and how new people can get involved.
Chapters:
00:00 Welcome music + promo clip
00:22 Introductions
02:17 What is Gemara and what problem does it address?
03:58 Why do we need a model for GRC engineering?
05:50 The seven-layer structure of Gemara
07:40 How Gemara connects to other open source projects
10:14 Tools available to help with Gemara model adoption
11:39 How to get involved in the Gemara projects
13:59 Rapid Fire
16:03 Closing thoughts and call to action
Episode links:
Jenn Power LinkedIn page
Hannah Braswell LinkedIn page
Gemara Website
Blog: Introducing the Gemara Model
Publication: Gemara: A Governance, Risk, and Compliance Engineering Model for Automated Risk Assessment
OpenSSF OSPS Baseline
Finos Common Cloud Controls
Privateer
Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) Brief Guide for OSS Developers
LFEL1001: Understanding the EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) (Education/Training) 
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In this final episode of our AI Cyber Challenge (AIxCC) series, CRob and Jeff Diecks wrap-up the journey from DARPA's groundbreaking two-year competition to the exciting collaborative phase happening now. Discover how winning teams are taking their AI-powered vulnerability detection systems into the real world, finding actual bugs in projects like the Linux kernel and CUPS. Learn about the innovative OSS-CRS project that aims to create a standard infrastructure for mixing and matching the best components from different systems, and hear valuable lessons about how to responsibly introduce AI-generated security findings to open source maintainers. The competition may be over, but the real work—and collaboration—is just beginning.
This episode is part 4 of a four-part series on AIxCC:
AIxCC part 1: From Skepticism to Success: The AI Cyber Challenge (AIxCC) with Andrew Carney
AIxCC part 2: From Skeptics to Believers: How Team Atlanta Won AIxCC by Combining Traditional Security with LLMs
AIxCC part 3: Buttercup's Hybrid Approach: Trail of Bits' Journey to Second Place in AIxCC

Chapters:
00:00 - Welcome and Introduction to AICC
01:37 - OpenSSF's AI Security Mission: Two Lenses
03:54 - Competition Highlights: What the Teams Discovered
07:43 - Real-World Impact: From Research to Production
10:44 - Lessons Learned: Working with Open Source Maintainers
13:13 - OSS-CRS: Building a Standard Infrastructure
14:29 - Breaking Down Walls: Post-Competition Collaboration
15:39 - How to Get Involved

Episode links:
Jeff Diecks LinkedIn page
Christopher “CRob” Robinson LinkedIn page
AI Cyber Challenge (AIxCC)
OSS-CRS Project
OpenSSF AI/ML Security Working Group
Cyber Reasoning Systems Special Interest Group (Slack)
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In the final episode of our AI Cyber Challenge (AIxCC) series, CRob sits down with Michael Brown, Principal Security Engineer at Trail of Bits, to discuss their runner-up cybersecurity reasoning system, Buttercup. Michael shares how their team took a hybrid approach - combining large language models with conventional software analysis tools like fuzzers - to create a system that exceeded even their own expectations. Learn how Trail of Bits made Buttercup fully open source and accessible to run on a laptop, their commitment to ongoing maintenance with prize winnings, and why they believe AI works best when applied to small, focused problems rather than trying to solve everything at once.
This episode is part 3 of a four-part series on AIxCC:
AIxCC part 1: From Skepticism to Success: The AI Cyber Challenge (AIxCC) with Andrew Carney
AIxCC part 2: From Skeptics to Believers: How Team Atlanta Won AIxCC by Combining Traditional Security with LLMs
AIxCC part 4: Cyber Reasoning Systems: The Real-World Journey After AIxCC
Chapters:
00:04 - Introduction & Welcome
00:12 - About Trail of Bits & Open Source Commitment
03:16 - Buttercup: Second Place in AIxCC
04:20 - The Hybrid Approach Strategy
06:45 - From Skeptic to Believer
09:28 - Surprises & Vindication During Competition
11:36 - Multi-Agent Patching Success
14:46 - Post-Competition Plans
15:26 - Making Buttercup Run on a Laptop
18:22 - The Giant Check & DEF CON
18:59 - How to Access Buttercup on GitHub
21:37 - Enterprise Deployment & Community Support
22:23 - Closing Remarks

Episode links:
Michael Brown’s LinkedIn page
AI Cyber Challenge (AIxCC)
Trail of Bits
Buttercup GitHub Repo
OpenSSF AI/ML Security Working Group
Cyber Reasoning Systems Special Interest Group (Slack)
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In this 2nd episode in our series on DARPA's AI Cyber Challenge (AIxCC), CRob sits down with Professor Taesoo Kim from Georgia Tech to discuss Team Atlanta's journey to victory. Kim shares how his team - comprised of academics, world-class hackers, and Samsung engineers - initially skeptical of AI tools, underwent a complete mindset shift during the competition. He shares how they successfully augmented traditional security techniques like fuzzing and symbolic execution with LLM capabilities to find vulnerabilities in large-scale open source projects. Kim also reveals exciting post-competition developments, including commercialization efforts in smart contract auditing and plans to make their winning CRS accessible to the broader security community through integration with OSS-Fuzz.
This episode is part 2 of a four-part series on AIxCC:
AIxCC part 1: From Skepticism to Success: The AI Cyber Challenge (AIxCC) with Andrew Carney
AIxCC part 3: Buttercup's Hybrid Approach: Trail of Bits' Journey to Second Place in AIxCC
AIxCC part 4: Cyber Reasoning Systems: The Real-World Journey After AIxCC
Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
00:37 - Team Atlanta's Background and Competition Strategy
03:43 - The Key to Victory: Combining Traditional and Modern Techniques
05:22 - Proof of Vulnerability vs. Finding Bugs
06:55 - The Mindset Shift: From AI Skeptics to Believers
09:46 - Overcoming Scalability Challenges with LLMs
10:53 - Post-Competition Plans and Commercialization
12:25 - Smart Contract Auditing Applications
14:20 - Making the CRS Accessible to the Community
16:32 - Student Experience and Research Impact
20:18 - Getting Started: Contributing to the Open Source CRS
22:25 - Real-World Adoption and Industry Impact
24:54 - The Future of AI-Powered Security Competitions

Episodes Links:
Taesoo Kim’s LinkedIn page
AI Cyber Challenge (AIxCC)
OSS-Fuzz Project
OpenSSF AI/ML Security Working Group
Cyber Reasoning Systems Special Interest Group (Slack)
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Follow the OpenSSF on LinkedIn