World’s biggest technology giants have pledged support for a three-year combined venture called ‘Core Infrastructure Initiative’ to prevent the onslaught of another ‘Heartbleed’ crisis.
The project has been announced by Linux Foundation, a nonprofit group that advocates for the growth of Linux and collaborative software development.
Early participants include the big-wigs of technology, like Microsoft, Facebook, Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu, Intel, Net App, VMWare, Amazon, and Rackspace, along with dozens of others.
Each of these companies have pledged $100, 000 to the project to fund improvements in open source programs like OpenSSL, whose code is used as a security measure by almost two-thirds of the websites in the world.
Other projects expected to be supported by the venture include ModSSL, PGP and OpenCryptolab, reports UPI.
Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin said: "Decisions about which projects to fund will be made by a committee of stakeholders including tech companies, academics, and companies who use open source software."
The Heartbleed bug has escalated into a major crisis for most companies, which have lost millions of dollars in lost productivity as well as exposed them to major cyber thefts, resulting in erosion of customer trust.
First revealed on 7 April to the world, Heartbleed bug has exposed the user information of about 66% of the world’s active websites.
