The pressure

The curl project's security team is facing unprecedented pressure from a flood of AI-assisted security reports, with incoming reports now 4-5 times higher than 2024 levels and averaging more than one per day. Project lead Daniel Stenberg reported that the workload has become so intense that his wife expressed concerns about his work hours for the first time. Despite the volume, curl remains solid software with most vulnerabilities rated LOW or MEDIUM severity, and no HIGH severity CVEs since October 2023.

curl team are facing right now thanks to the deluge of credible AI-assisted security issues being reported. The rate of incoming security reports is 4-5 times higher than it was in 2024 and double the speed of 2025 -- meaning that on average we now get more than one report per day. The quality is way higher than ever before. The reports are typicallyverydetailed and long. ... For the first time in my life, my wife voiced concerns about my work hours and my imbalanced work/life situation. I work more than I’ve done before, but the flood keeps coming. ... This is a never-before seen or experienced pressure on the curl project and its security team members. An avalanche of high priority work that trumps all other things in the project that is primarily mental because we certainly couldignore them all if we wanted, but we feel a responsibility, we have a conscience and we are proud about our work. The good news is that curl is a very solid piece of software, so the vulnerabilities people are finding tend not to be of high severity: What is also a good trend: almost no one finds terriblevulnerabilities. All vulnerabilities found the last few years in curl haveallbeen deemed severity LOW or MEDIUM. I'm not saying there won't be any more HIGH ever, but at least they are rare. The most recent severity high curl CVE was published in October 2023. Via Lobste.rs https://lobste.rs/s/dw02ye/pressure Tags: curl https://simonwillison.net/tags/curl , security https://simonwillison.net/tags/security , ai https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai , generative-ai https://simonwillison.net/tags/generative-ai , llms https://simonwillison.net/tags/llms , daniel-stenberg https://simonwillison.net/tags/daniel-stenberg , ai-ethics https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai-ethics , ai-security-research https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai-security-research