Red Hat, IBM launch open source threat remediation tool

Red Hat and IBM have jointly launched Lightwell, a platform for providing automated remediation for open source software vulnerabilities.

The platform consists of two offerings: Lightwell Network and Lightwell Clearinghouse Premier. Lightwell Network has launched into general availability and is said to provide members a growing library of content including digitally signed binaries, source code and compliance artefacts.

Meanwhile, Lightwell Clearinghouse Premier has entered a limited-availability commercial onboarding stage for financial services users. The solution is designed to act as a trusted intermediary for industry collaboration, advanced vertical threat coordination and secured patch embargoes.

In future, Red Hat and IBM plan to expand the Lightwell Clearinghouse Premier solution to other critical infrastructure verticals, including government, health care and telecommunications. But access will remain gated to qualified participating organisations due to the specialised legal, geographic and disclosure frameworks required to operate sector-specific clearinghouse networks.

In May, IBM and Red Hat announced a US$5 billion commitment to open source security. The companies say the Lightwell solutions reflect that commitment.

Lightwell uses a high-throughput generative AI-powered remediation engine to identity, validate and remediate vulnerabilities across critical dependencies embedded within modern software architecture. It uses automation to backport critical fixes directly to long-lived production software versions to eliminate the need for lengthy regression testing.

Red Hat President and CEO Matt Hicks said the solution represents a structural shift in how enterprise software is secured.

“By pairing automated remediation with our deep engineering heritage, we aim to deliver the trusted infrastructure required to consume open source reliably, sustainably and at AI speeds,” he said.

“IBM and Red Hat are giving enterprises certified fixes they can pull straight into the systems they already run, with no retooling or disruption, backed by a growing network of technology and delivery partners,” IBM SVP for Software and CCO Rob Thomas added. “Making that possible takes scale most organisations don't have, a world-class team of engineers and AI systems working around the clock to protect the open source software the world’s enterprises run on.”

Red Hat and IBM are collaborating with a long list of industry partners on Lightwell, including AWS, AMD, F5, GitLab, Intel, JFrog, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Palo Alto Networks and ServiceNow.

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