By Stacey Potter and Eddie Knight
The 2026 Security Slam has officially concluded, and we couldn’t be more proud of the progress made across the open source ecosystem. From automated baseline evaluations to comprehensive threat modeling, our participating projects and contributors have taken significant steps to “secure open source at the source.”
The event culminated in an Awards Ceremony at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2026, where we recognized the following outstanding achievements:
The Top Finishers: 5-Badge Projects
These projects demonstrated exceptional commitment by earning all five available badges: Cleaner, Chronicler, Inspector, Mechanizer, and Defender.
- Privateer: A massive congratulations to the team and Jason Meridth, who earned the first Security Champion badge this year — in addition to acting as a Slam Advisor for other projects.
- CloudNativePG: Huge kudos to Gabriele Bartolini for his leadership in achieving all five objectives and earning the Security Champion designation.
- Meshery: A stellar team effort! Sangram Rath earned a Security Champion badge for his work on four objectives, while Jonathan Abdiel earned a Security Advocate badge.
High Achievers: 4-Badge Projects
Completing four of the five rigorous objectives is a significant feat. These projects are well on their way to total baseline compliance.
- Kyverno: Earned the Cleaner, Chronicler, Mechanizer, and Inspector badges. Shuting Zhao was instrumental in this success, earning a Security Champion badge for her efforts.
- Metal3: Also secured the Cleaner, Chronicler, Mechanizer, and Inspector badges. Tuomo Tanskanen’s leadership earned him the Security Champion badge.
Making an Impact: Notable Contributions
Security is a journey, and every objective completed makes the ecosystem safer.
- Repository Service for TUF (RSTUF): Earned the Cleaner badge with key contributions from Camila Vilarinho, our newest Security Advocate.
- Minder: Earned the Cleaner badge thanks to the hard work of Evan Anderson, who also earned a Security Advocate badge.
Our Guiding Stars: Security Advisors
Special recognition goes to our Security Advisors. These individuals are the backbone of the event, having created the “Slam Library” content and provided direct support to the projects listed above. For their leadership, they have been awarded the Security Slam 2026 Advisor badge:
- Aaron Linskens, Ben Cotton, Evan Anderson, Jason Meridth, Jennifer Power, Jonathan Reimer, Satarupa Deb, Madalin Neag, and Roman Zhukov.
A Heartfelt Thank You to Our Organizers & Partners
An initiative of this scale is only possible through dedicated collaboration. We want to extend a massive thank you to the CNCF TAG Security and Compliance team for their vision and tireless work in running this event. Your commitment to raising the bar for open source security continues to inspire the entire community.
We are deeply grateful to our partner, Sonatype. Their massive support and technical expertise were instrumental in providing participants with the tools and insights needed to succeed. Thank you for being such a vital part of the Security Slam mission!
Highlights from the Awards Ceremony
CloudNativePG
ORBIT Working Group (Ben Cotton)
With Gabriele Bartolini
With Tuomo Tanskanen
Congratulations to all our winners! Your work has not only improved your individual projects but has strengthened the entire open source community.
What’s Next: Remote Security Slam This Fall
Stay tuned! We will be back for a remote Security Slam this fall ahead of KubeCon North America. Find the Event Details Here and Subscribe to our Newsletter for updates.
About the Authors
Eddie Knight is a Software and Cloud Engineer with a background in banking technology. When he isn’t playing with his 3-year-old son, he combines his passion and job duties by working to improve the security of the open source software ecosystem. Eddie helps lead CNCF’s Security Technical Advisory Group, the FINOS Technical Oversight Committee, and the OpenSSF Security Baseline.
Stacey Potter is the Community Manager at OpenSSF, and brings extensive experience in open source community building, marketing, and event coordination. With a background spanning projects like Minder, Flux and Flagger, OpenFeature, and Keptn, shehas played a key role in fostering engagement and driving adoption across cloud-native and open source security ecosystems.