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OpenAI is said to be in early talks to acquire cybersecurity firm Trail of Bits, The Information reports
IA en un minuto newsroom · Editor: Jon Elgezabal
In 30 seconds
OpenAI is exploring a takeover of Trail of Bits, the firm that hunts down and fixes holes in open-source code, according to The Information. The negotiations are at an early stage, with no known price and a real chance of going nowhere. Trail of Bits has worked since June on Patch the Planet, the initiative where OpenAI's models find flaws and its specialists verify them and prepare the fixes.
OpenAI is holding early-stage talks to acquire Trail of Bits, a cybersecurity company devoted to spotting and fixing security flaws in open-source software. The Information reported it on Tuesday, October 13, citing people familiar with the negotiations. No deal has been reached, and neither company has announced anything.
According to those sources, the talks are continuing and could still break down. The outlet was unable to find out how much OpenAI would pay; it points out that the company has at times paid a few hundred million dollars in stock for small startups, and less on other occasions. The Information places the move within OpenAI's push to build a sizeable cybersecurity business.
It would not be a new relationship. In June, OpenAI unveiled Patch the Planet, an initiative under Daybreak, its cybersecurity program, built with Trail of Bits to help the people who maintain open-source projects. OpenAI's models hunt for vulnerabilities, and Trail of Bits specialists check them, prepare and test the patches together with each project and coordinate how they are made public. Trail of Bits put its whole security research organization behind the effort, and HackerOne and Calif are also taking part.
According to the initiative's page, Trail of Bits engineers work with Codex and GPT-5.5-Cyber on 19 open-source projects and have so far turned up hundreds of security problems, with dozens of patches already merged. Early participants include Python, Sigstore, Go and cURL.
Why it matters · analysis and opinion
Buying the partner that already works with one's own models is the shortest route from a collaboration to a business. AI is finding flaws ever faster, but an unverified finding only adds work for whoever maintains the project; the value lies in the human team that separates the real from the noise and delivers a tested patch. If the deal goes ahead, OpenAI would sell not just models for security but the whole service, moving onto the turf of the sector's consultancies. For companies that rely on open software, the signal is that AI-assisted review is no longer an experiment. It remains to be seen whether Trail of Bits would keep its independence when auditing third parties, including rivals of its new owner, and whether the deal closes at all.
Source: The Information · Written with the help of AI: how we make the news
