OpenAI in talks to acquire Trail of Bits, security-focused open-source auditor

Trail of Bits, which specializes in identifying and patching security vulnerabilities across open-source codebases, is the subject of acquisition discussions with OpenAI, according to reporting by The Information on 13 October. Valida Pau and Amir Efrati cited unnamed sources close to the matter, noting that negotiations remain preliminary and could dissolve before completion. The potential transaction's financial terms have not been disclosed. According to The Information, OpenAI has previously acquired small startups for valuations ranging from the low hundreds of millions of dollars in equity to significantly less.

An established collaboration

Trail of Bits, established in 2012 with more than 40 employees on staff, conducts security audits of software systems for clients. The company expanded its work in August to include auditing Signal's key verification mechanisms alongside Cloudflare.

The partnership between OpenAI and Trail of Bits commenced in June with the introduction of Patch the Planet, an initiative housed within OpenAI's Daybreak cyber programme. In this collaboration, Trail of Bits engineers leverage OpenAI's GPT-5.5-Cyber model and Codex tools to identify defects in open-source initiatives. The team validates findings, develops fixes and coordinates with project maintainers to implement solutions.

At the project's inception, the team was dedicating full-time effort to 19 initiatives, OpenAI announced. The portfolio encompasses cURL, Python and the Go project. The effort had already surfaced hundreds of security issues, with dozens of patches successfully integrated into the respective projects.

Trail of Bits has committed their entire security research organization

OpenAI, June

OpenAI's cybersecurity expansion

OpenAI is working to establish a meaningful presence in the cybersecurity sector, The Information reported. In September, the company committed $1bn toward cyber defence initiatives targeting water utilities and community banks as part of Daybreak. That same month, OpenAI completed the acquisition of Glass Imaging, a camera technology company.

Source: The Next Web