Minimus Launches Open Source Program, Bringing Hardened Images to Critical Infrastructure Projects

Applications for eligible projects open March 24, 2026

BATON ROUGE, La., March 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Minimus, the leader in hardened container images and secure container software, today announced the Minimus Open Source Program, an initiative to help open source maintainers strengthen the security and integrity of their software supply chains. Eligible projects will receive access to Minimus secure container images, Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) generation and analysis, and threat intelligence tooling at no cost.

Open source software underpins a vast share of the world's critical digital infrastructure, yet most maintainers lack access to the security tooling enterprises take for granted. This program aims to close that gap, putting modern supply chain security directly in the hands of the communities that need it most.

Projects accepted into the program can integrate Minimus images into their build pipelines, immediately reducing attack surface for their users. Maintainers will also gain visibility into dependencies and potential vulnerabilities through Minimus's threat intelligence dashboard.

The Open Source Program builds on a period of rapid growth for Minimus. Since launching publicly at RSAC in April 2025, the company has grown revenue by 285%, expanded its Image Gallery to over 1,200 hardened container images, and shipped major new capabilities, including Image Creator, which enables enterprises to build and manage their own hardened images on the Minimus platform. Minimus images are now supported by major cloud security platforms, including Aqua Security, AWS, Google Cloud, Orca Security, Snyk, and Wiz.

"Open source maintainers are responsible for the software that runs the world's infrastructure, but they're rarely given the security tools to match that responsibility," said Kat Cosgrove, Head of Developer Advocacy, Minimus. "Hardened images, signed SBOMs, and real-time exploit intelligence shouldn't be enterprise-only capabilities — they should be table stakes for any project that critical infrastructure depends on. That's exactly what this program delivers."

The program is open to open source projects using an OSI-approved license that meet minimum project health criteria. Accepted projects receive:

• Access to hardened, compliant images from the Minimus Image Gallery
• Custom image creation, Helm charts, and automatically generated SBOMs
• Real-time exploit intelligence to prioritize CVE remediation and patch efforts
• Image updates in accordance with Minimus' commercial SLAs

Applications open March 24, 2026. Open source maintainers can learn more and apply at minimus.io/open-source

About Minimus
Founded in October 2022 by Ben Bernstein, Dima Stopel, and John Morello, Minimus radically reduces cloud software vulnerabilities. As the pioneers of container security with Twistlock and author of NIST SP 800-190, Minimus solves the endless treadmill of cloud software vulnerabilities by simply preventing 97% of them from ever existing, delivering a modern foundation for secure container software, open source container security, and software supply chain security.

Minimus builds images from scratch, directly from upstream project sources, with only the minimal software needed to run the app, dramatically reducing their attack surface. Minimus images are drop-in replacements for the apps organizations are already using and are deployed with single line configuration file changes, providing nearly instant time to value. Minimus eliminates time-consuming and low-value remediation work for devs, is easy for ops to deploy and manage using their existing tools, and provides security with remarkably clear risk reduction. Minimus raised a $51M seed round from YL Ventures and Mayfield.

Media Contact:
Michelle Kearney
Hi-Touch PR
[email protected]

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SOURCE Minimus