New funding from Big Tech aims to help exhausted open-source maintainers who have lately seen more bugs than a hot trash can, thanks to AI tools.

The Linux Foundation announced $12.5 million in new grant funding from major tech companies, including Google, Microsoft, Anthropic, and OpenAI, to strengthen software security in widely used open-source projects.

The foundation, according to its site, supports over 1,300 projects (including the containerized application manager Kubernetes and the operating system Linux itself), boasts 855,000 developers contributing code, and adds 89 million lines of code weekly.

The Big Tech funders, like many companies today, rely heavily on Linux and open-source code.

Google’s mobile operating system Android, for example, is open-source, Linux-based software, OpenAI uses Kubernetes for its large model infrastructure, and Amazon allows users to run their cloud environments in a Linux environment.

How AI-supported coding is impacting vulnerabilities.—BH

Execs want AI ASAP, but sometimes the necessary data quality is TBD.

The essential data supporting AI platforms may be stuck in a mainframe, scribbled on paper, or placed inconsistently within a database. For some legacy companies, decades’ worth of data might be scattered across multiple storage devices in multiple offices.

A Harvard Business Review survey cited in a report by AI platform Cloudera found that just 7% of respondents (decision-makers considering AI for business purposes) said their data was “completely ready” for AI adoption.

We spoke with IT pros about how to get data ready as fast as possible.

What does “not ready” look like? CJ Combs, senior AI consultant at AI and data solutions firm Columbus, has seen plenty of data sets that need cleaning up before they hit the large language model.

Moving fast means starting small.—BH

Look up in the sky! It’s a bird…It’s a plane…It’s a…drone?

During a March 23 panel at RSAC 2026, Airspace Defense CEO Jaz Banga told the crowd that the security landscape is undergoing a fundamental change: While the focus has previously been on “two-dimensional threats” (i.e., hackers attempting to gain access to systems), drones are now presenting “three-dimensional” ones involving the airspace around data center facilities and other public venues.

Fly past. Part of the problem comes from the lack of oversight for the unmanned aerial vehicles, Banga said, adding that there is currently “no DMV for drones.”

“All registrations are voluntary with the [Federal Aviation Administration], and so we have no idea what’s going on in the air above us,” Banga said during the panel. For example, he added, there are more than 14,000 anonymous drone flights occurring monthly in New York City alone.

There’s also security risks for organizations operating drones.—BM

As retailers expand the use of facial recognition and other biometric tools, questions around privacy and security are mounting. Experts explain what companies should be doing to protect biometric data—and why transparency and strong controls matter.