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Open-source AI is shaping the future of cyber security innovation, constantly breaking obstacles and providing results. Its effect is spread by agile startup CiscoThe Foundation -Sek -8B model, which was downloaded more than 18,000 times in the previous month and more than 40,000 times since launch.
Seeing the venturebeat trend intensifies, especially in cyber security startups that bring a new level of intensity to convert roadmap into revenue-producing products. Depending on the months of interview with the startup founders, Open-SUS AI is now unavoidable for them and their teams, when it comes to shipable code, to complete fast-trending concepts.
Databricks’ recent partnership with NOMA security shows how startups take advantage of Open-SOS AI, which rapidly obtained the market and adequate operational maturity from time to time by obtaining heritage cyber security providers. Cisco Chairman and Chief Excise Officer Jeetu Patel spoke for significant changes in RSAC 2025, “AI is fundamentally changing everything, and cyber security is all in the heart of all this. We are no longer dealing with the dangers on the human-fame; these attacks are happening on the machine scale.”
Several interviews of venturebeat with cyber security industry leaders, especially founders, suggest that it is necessary to enable open-sources AI businesses to focus their focus to focus on major unmatched needs on a wide basis of enterprise possibilities that they successfully turn into customers. While open-sources AI and comprehensive software industries drive unprecedented levels of new enterprises and innovation, they also fuel a growing contradiction that incorporates safety, compliance and mudification.
The venturebeat continues to see successful cyber security startups navigating these complications and discovering new strength in its apps, tools and platforms, which were not the first to be built and distributed.
The best run startups are quick to capitalize on these unexpected powers and apply more disciplined and deliberate approaches to governance, recognizing the long -term benefits of that strategy. They are also rapid in adopting as much automation as possible. The most effective is how they see themselves as construction communities for the coming decades, all considered the ability to increase product strategy at open source.
Decoding open source contradictions
Open-source AI’s ability to act as an innovation catalyst is proved. What is unknown, the negative side or contradiction that is being built with an all-out focus on performance and ubiquity of platform development and support. In the center of contradiction for the creation of every company with Open-SUS AI, it needs to be kept open to fuel innovation, yet to gain control over the safety weaknesses and complexity of compliance.
Gartner Hype bicycle for open-source software, 2024, This Stark contradiction highlighted, given that high-risk weaknesses within the open-source codebase Announced 26% annually and NOW average about three years before the resolution.
In RSAC 2025, Diana Kelly, Protect AI’s CTO, Christlifted bets during their session Genai Safety Principles: Foundation for Safety Building. He said that “organizations download the open-source AI models without regularly adequate security checks, which significantly increase vulnerability risks.”
Regulatory compliance is becoming more complex and expensive, giving further fuel to contradiction. However, startup founders told venturebeat that high cost of compliance could be offset by data generated by their systems.
They are early to indicate that they do not intend to give governance, risk and compliance (GRC) solutions; However, their apps and platforms are meeting the needs of enterprises in the region, especially all over Europe. With enforcement of European Union AI do adjacent work, Quick security CEO Itar Golan stressed the urgency of embeding compliance in the strategic core during an interview with Venturebeat earlier this year. For example, the EU AI Act, starting its enforcement in February, and the speed of enforcement and fine is much more and aggressive than the GDPR. From our perspective, we want to help organizations navigate those framework, ensuring that they know about the equipment available to achieve AI safely and map them for the risk levels set by the Act. ,
Golan further stated, “A large part of the current cyber security market is taken only from GDPR, and as I see it, AI regulation is going to be much more aggressive than GDPR. It is very rational that around 2028, a huge market will be allotted for AI compliance.”
In the last five years, the founder of almost every cyber security startup, Venturebeat, has interviewed how to contribute to the company contributing to the open-source community. Many people try to make it one of the main elements of their business DNA.
The most successful cyber security startups realize that the ongoing, significant contribution to the open-source communities leads to permanent competitive advantage and industry leadership. Cisco Foundation -Secost -8B model This example gives how targeted, purpose-manufactured cyber security equipment enhances overall community flexibility to a great extent. Foundation -SEC -8B model has been downloaded 18,278 times alone in the last 30 days, according to its page Hugs. Foundation SEC-8B is an 8 billion parameter model that can be corrected for specific use cases, including danger detection and auto-regions.
Meta’s AI Defenders Suite and Nucleus of Project Discovery further explained how focused open-source contribution improves ecosystem safety and industry-wide cooperation.
NIV Braun, Co-Founder and CEO Nama securityReinforcing the significant importance of constant community-building strategies during a recent interview, “The community we are building, it is much more valuable, very valuable and much longer than any annual revenue figure. A community that builds up a community that trusts people is absolutely important”.
Open-sources Cyber Security Leaders major takeaways
Drawing on insight by more than a dozen interviews with Braun, Golan, Kelly, Patel, and Cyber Security founders, CEOs and leaders, emerging as a founder to succeed with the five major takeaWays Open-SOS AI. They are as follows:
- Strategically
Install an Open Source Program Office (OSPO) to manage licenses, compliance and weaknesses. Embed the governance dashboard directly into products, offering real -time regulatory compliance visibility as core discrimination. Braun highlighted the transformative ability of governance during his recent interview with venturebeat, saying, “Governance is not overhead – it is our major discrimination, which enables spontaneous compliance.”
- Automatically automate security with generic AI
Apply a large -scale generative AI to automate safety processes, including vulnerability detection, treatment and real -time danger management. As the goal clearly clarifies: “Generative AI-conducted automation dramatically strengthens operations and increases safety efficiency beyond manual abilities.”
- Contribute strategically objective-made equipment
Exclusive, purpose-manufactured cyber security models actively contribute to open source communities, increasing collective security flexibility. Jeetu Patel captured this perspective during his keynote speaker at RSAC and interviewed with venture: “The true enemy is not our competitor. It is opposed to the objective-made open-sources contribution is important for collective cyber security flexibility.”
- Manage and communicate transparently
Clearly clarify TCO, addressing transparently hidden costs and long -term values. Managing TCO calculations reduces the uncertainty of the customer and increases the confidence of the market, directly addressing the challenges of the Gartner around the seller lock-in perceptions.
- Priority to rigorous and active risk management
Continuous automatic vulnerability scanning and remedial deployment, maintain curated internal OSS catalogs, and automate compliance documentation (SBOOM/Vex) to streamline the audit, reduce risk risk and simplify regulatory compliance. Kelly insisted during her keynote speaker at RSAC 2025, “Hard, automated risk management is necessary to effectively manage open source cyber security.”
Conclusions: Mastery in open source for strategic gains
For cyber security startups, taking advantage of open-source AI strategically offers unique innovation, discrimination and continuous development opportunities. Embanding governance deeply, automation of security through generic AI, contributing objective-made community equipment, managing the total cost (TCO) of ownership and reducing attempted positions as strictly risk leaders as leaders of industry capable of running significant cyber changes.
As Jeetu Patel briefly stated in RSAC 2025: “Strategic open-source innovation is necessary to acquire our digital future collectively. Not anti-opposing competitors-this is our true challenge.”
By embracing these strategic insights, cyber security startup confidently can navigate the complications of open-source software, transforming transforming industry leadership and long-term competitive success.
Join me in VB Transform 2025
I am hosting a roundateable focused on this subject, called “Building Cyber Security Apps” with Open Source, Venturebeat Transform 2025Fort Mason in San Francisco is taking place on 24–25 June. Register me to join the conversation and sign up. Change The annual phenomenon of venturebeat brings venture and AI leaders together to discuss practical, real -world AI strategies.
