Dark Reading is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them.Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Database Security
Authentication
Mobile
Privacy
Compliance
Careers and People
Identity & Access Management
Security Monitoring
Advanced Threats
Insider Threats
Vulnerability Management
Comments
Open Source Software Poses a Real Security Threat
Threaded  |  Newest First  |  Oldest First
tychotithonus
tychotithonus,
 User Rank: Strategist
8/15/2018 | 2:41:39 PM
contrast with closed source
I feel that this headline was designed to poke the FOSS bear. :)

Singling this out as an open-source problem is insufficiently precise. The valid points made here have less to do with open source per se than they do with overall software supply chain.

Further, most closed-source projects are themselves built on top of many layers of open-source components - from Linux to Apache http to Cygwin to the broad spectrum of libraries. This is especially true for security appliances. With open source, you and others can at least verify that you're using current, patched versions of those components - and quickly upgrade them to respond to vulnerabilities, instead of waiting for your vendor's next quarterly/yearly patch/certification cycle.

As a FOSS advocate, it would have been more even-handed of you to have included points such as these as part of your analysis.
JeffW94002
JeffW94002,
 User Rank: Apprentice
9/28/2018 | 4:59:22 PM
Re: contrast with closed source
Well, you're right in the sense that this is a problem for both open and closed source code.  But they're not the same. The success of open source code has made your point incorrect.  The size and complexity of the open source supply chain is dramatically larger than for closed source. The average web application is now 81% open source libraries and frameworks (although 72% of *that* is never invoked).  Your point about closed-source projects just makes my point.  Further, updating open source isn't the same as updating closed source.  Nobody goes back and provides patches for old open source... you are forced to upgrade to the latest version.  That means changing your software to match.  As I mentioned, I'm a huge open source advocate, but you can't try this false equivalence thing -- it's not helping the cause.  That bear now deserves to be poked.


Edge-DRsplash-10-edge-articles
I Smell a RAT! New Cybersecurity Threats for the Crypto Industry
David Trepp, Partner, IT Assurance with accounting and advisory firm BPM LLP,  7/9/2021
News
Attacks on Kaseya Servers Led to Ransomware in Less Than 2 Hours
Robert Lemos, Contributing Writer,  7/7/2021
Commentary
It's in the Game (but It Shouldn't Be)
Tal Memran, Cybersecurity Expert, CYE,  7/9/2021
Register for Dark Reading Newsletters
White Papers
Video
Cartoon
Current Issue
The Promise and Reality of Cloud Security
Cloud security has been part of the cybersecurity conversation for years but has been on the sidelines for most enterprises. The shift to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic and digital transformation projects have moved cloud infrastructure front-and-center as enterprises address the associated security risks. This report - a compilation of cutting-edge Black Hat research, in-depth Omdia analysis, and comprehensive Dark Reading reporting - explores how cloud security is rapidly evolving.
Flash Poll
Twitter Feed
Dark Reading - Bug Report
Bug Report
Enterprise Vulnerabilities
From DHS/US-CERT's National Vulnerability Database
CVE-2022-48285
PUBLISHED: 2023-01-29
loadAsync in JSZip before 3.8.0 allows Directory Traversal via a crafted ZIP archive.
CVE-2023-0564
PUBLISHED: 2023-01-29
Weak Password Requirements in GitHub repository froxlor/froxlor prior to 2.0.10.
CVE-2021-4315
PUBLISHED: 2023-01-28
A vulnerability has been found in NYUCCL psiTurk up to 3.2.0 and classified as critical. This vulnerability affects unknown code of the file psiturk/experiment.py. The manipulation of the argument mode leads to improper neutralization of special elements used in a template engine. The exploit has be...
CVE-2023-0562
PUBLISHED: 2023-01-28
A vulnerability was found in PHPGurukul Bank Locker Management System 1.0. It has been rated as critical. Affected by this issue is some unknown functionality of the file index.php of the component Login. The manipulation of the argument username leads to sql injection. The attack may be launched re...
CVE-2023-0563
PUBLISHED: 2023-01-28
A vulnerability classified as problematic has been found in PHPGurukul Bank Locker Management System 1.0. This affects an unknown part of the file add-locker-form.php of the component Assign Locker. The manipulation of the argument ahname leads to cross site scripting. It is possible to initiate the...