Updated · Rochester Institute of Technology · May 26
RIT Students Merge 20 OpenSSL Pull Requests, Strengthening Software Used by Two-Thirds of Websites
Updated
Updated · Rochester Institute of Technology · May 26
RIT Students Merge 20 OpenSSL Pull Requests, Strengthening Software Used by Two-Thirds of Websites
1 articles · Updated · Rochester Institute of Technology · May 26
20 pull requests from an RIT cybersecurity course were merged into OpenSSL this year, extending a three-semester effort to patch issues in the encryption library.
OpenSSL underpins secure communications for about two-thirds of websites and internet servers, so the student fixes and regression tests are designed to prevent bugs from resurfacing in future code changes.
More than 1,000 reported issues remain open on OpenSSL’s GitHub, giving students real-world work in C and open-source security review under professor Billy Brumley.
Around 60 RIT student projects have been merged across Brumley’s courses, and he plans to teach the class again in fall 2026 while exploring co-ops with OpenSSL Corp.
As students patch today's bugs, can OpenSSL's volunteer model withstand the coming wave of AI-driven and quantum threats?
With students writing 18% of its code, is this university partnership the future for securing the internet's most critical software?