Trail of Bits uses Codex to backport security fixes at scale
Backporting security fixes at scale with Codex
Trail of Bits used Codex and GPT-5.6 to backport security fixes to stable Linux, reducing the backport time per fix from days to hours; as of October 29, the project has helped deliver fixes for 149 CVEs to stable kernel versions and submitted multiple fixes to Fedora and Ubuntu packages. The workflow has agents identify missing fixes, rewrite patches, compile verification evidence, run tests and prepare submission packages, while engineers review and submit to maintainers; excluding initial project setup, a simple backport takes about 30 minutes of human effort and a complex case about 3 hours, and regression testing and maintainer acceptance are still indispensable.
The original source provides statistics on the scale of unfixed CVEs in each stable branch, as well as the human cost of about 30 minutes to 3 hours per fix; teams maintaining older software versions can refer to this human-machine division-of-labor workflow.