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November 21, 2025
Introduction
On 20 October 2025, a major AWS outage rippled across the internet, disrupting everything from collaboration tools to consumer devices. Services like Slack, Zoom, Snapchat, Fortnite, Alexa, and even some “smart beds”, stumbled when a DNS issue and faulty automation knocked core cloud systems offline. The incident recovered, but it was a sobering reminder: our digital lives rest on shared foundations whose health affects everyone.
That foundation is not just cloud. It’s the open source software (OSS) inside nearly every product and platform you use. In this post, we’ll explain what open source is, why it should be treated as critical infrastructure, how contributing helps your career and the wider world, and concrete ways to contribute with Arachne Digital.
What is open source?
Open source is software released under licenses that allow anyone to use, study, modify, and share the code. That transparency enables rapid innovation, broad reuse, and collaborative maintenance across organisations, governments, and individual developers. OSS quietly powers the world’s computing stack, think Linux, Kubernetes, and countless libraries woven into applications and cloud services. The Linux Foundation describes these projects as critical to the world’s infrastructure, not hyperbole, but a description of real dependency.
Why open source is critical infrastructure
Governments and standards bodies are treating it that way — Security agencies and policymakers have moved decisively to support and secure open source. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) published an Open Source Software Security Roadmap to align OSS security with national risk reduction goals, and the White House National Cybersecurity Strategy launched the Open-Source Software Security Initiative (OS3I) to strengthen the ecosystem. In Europe, the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) is reshaping responsibilities for software placed on the EU market, with dedicated workstreams for OSS communities.
The risks and stakes are systemic — Because OSS is ubiquitous, one widely used component can introduce global risk, as the Log4j vulnerability showed. The U.S. Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) called Log4j’s weaknesses “endemic” and warned they would persist for years, underscoring the need to invest in the health of open source maintainership and transparency.
More recently, the attempted XZ Utils supply-chain backdoor (CVE-2024–3094) revealed both the attacker interest in OSS and the resilience of open collaboration: a developer noticed anomalous CPU behaviour, uncovered the backdoor, and coordinated a rapid response across distributions, proof that openness can be a strength when communities are resourced.
The dependency data is clear — Audits of commercial code bases continue to find near-universal OSS usage, with a significant portion running outdated or vulnerable versions that organisations must manage responsibly. Recent OSSRA findings highlight that most applications contain outdated open source components, and a large majority include known vulnerabilities, reinforcing the case for better maintenance and contribution, not just consumption.
Open source is a public good that must be funded and stewarded — Leaders across the ecosystem (OpenSSF, Linux Foundation) argue that open infrastructure isn’t free, it requires sustained investment in maintainers, governance, and security automation. Treating OSS as critical digital public infrastructure means budgeting and contributing accordingly.
The personal upside: Why contributing helps you
Open source isn’t just altruism — it’s career rocket fuel:
How to contribute with Arachne Digital
Arachne Digital maintains a family of open source projects that blend automation with human-curated threat intelligence. Whether you’re a developer, analyst, designer, or technical writer, there’s a path for you.
Our open projects (high-level):
How to get started (step-by-step):
Why your contribution matters right now
The AWS incident made headlines because an outage is visible. But invisible dependencies, the open source packages, libraries, and build tools inside cloud platforms and enterprise software, are equally consequential. Industry and governments are actively investing in securing this ecosystem, and the open source community has shown it can detect and neutralise threats quickly when it’s supported. That’s why we call OSS critical infrastructure, and why contributors, you, are an essential part of keeping it healthy.
Ready to contribute?
Bring your curiosity. We’ll bring context, mentorship, and meaningful work that protects organisations from cybercrime and disinformation, in the open.
If you’re unsure where to start, tell us your skills and interests and we’ll match you to a good first issue. Let’s build resilient digital infrastructure together.
Benefits
Why select Arachne?
Our platform searches the internet for information on threat actors, gathers reports, and categorises the findings by region, industry, and threat actor. Our process automatically maps TTPs to MITRE ATT&CK®, slashing research time and saving you money.
Testimonials & Partnerships
“Arachne Digital’s team works closely with us in integrating our tool, Speculo, with their data. Speculo is designed to help organisations get a full picture of their cyber risk with reliable analytics and a streamlined risk assessment process. The integration of Arachne Digital’s threat intelligence into Speculo provides evidence-based insights into cyber risks, making the tool more relevant to our customers. Arachne facilitated multiple face-to-face meetings and video calls, provided technical resources, comprehensive documentation, and example reports. This collaboration ensured that we could seamlessly integrate and utilize their data, significantly enriching the value we deliver to our clients.
Arachne Digital’s commitment to excellence and their proactive approach in supporting our needs have made them an indispensable partner. We highly recommend their services to any organisation looking to strengthen their threat intelligence capabilities.”
Speculo
Partnership
Arachne Digital is proud to partner with the DISARM Foundation as the inaugural member of their Partner Programme, launched at the beginning of 2024.
This partnership is crucial in supporting the DISARM Foundation’s mission to maintain and enhance the DISARM Framework, ensuring it remains a free and continuously updated resource in the fight against disinformation.
Through our collaboration, Arachne Digital provides valuable feedback, promotes the integration of the framework into our operations, and encourages wider adoption within the defender community. This partnership highlights our commitment to combating evolving threats and fostering a secure digital environment.
