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Cisco bets its small open cybersecurity models can outperform GPT-5.5 at vulnerability detection for a fraction of the cost

Cisco released two small open-source AI models, Antares-350M and Antares-1B, that detect software vulnerabilities at a fraction of the cost of larger models. In Cisco's tests, Antares scanned 500 code repositories in about 15 minutes for under a dollar, while GPT-5.5 took five hours and cost over $100 for the same job. Developer Aman Priyanshu claimed the smallest model catches about 150 times more vulnerabilities per dollar than large AI agents like Cognition's Devin Security Swarm.

read1 min views1 publishedJul 22, 2026
Cisco bets its small open cybersecurity models can outperform GPT-5.5 at vulnerability detection for a fraction of the cost
Image: The Decoder

Cisco has released two small, open AI models for cybersecurity. Antares-350M and Antares-1B spot vulnerabilities in software code. Cisco's pitch is bang for the buck. Developer Aman Priyanshu claims on X that the smallest model catches about 150 times more vulnerabilities per dollar than large AI agents like Cognition's Devin Security Swarm. In Cisco's own tests, according to Axios, Antares scanned 500 code repos in about 15 minutes for under a dollar. GPT-5.5 took five hours and cost over $100 for the same job.

Both models run locally, so sensitive code never leaves the company. The technical report says the models were trained on roughly 72 percent security-concept data and 15 percent code search histories.

Cisco is keeping a larger three-billion-parameter version for its own products. That version reportedly performs close to GPT-5.5 and beats open models up to 200 times its size. The company is also exploring an industry consortium for open AI security tools.

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Paper|

Hugging Face|

via X|

via Axios

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