What happened
Cisco released (July 21, 2026) Antares-350M and Antares-1B, small open-weight models purpose-built to scan code repositories for known vulnerabilities; Cisco reported scanning 500 repos in ~15 minutes for under $1, claiming far better cost-efficiency per vulnerability found than large general models/agent swarms. Cisco vets downloaders and worked with US government agencies on safety review.
Why it matters
Demonstrates a cost/efficiency-focused alternative to frontier-model-based vulnerability scanning that avoids sending proprietary source code to external AI providers — relevant OSS release for AppSec teams wanting on-prem scanning.
Applicability
AppSec/DevSecOps teams evaluating cheaper, self-hosted vulnerability-scanning models now that Antares is open-weight (subject to Cisco's access vetting).