Can open source be secure?
The debate by IT security experts regarding the use of open source in a business environment, and the impact of this on IT security, is a mature one. Experts do not agree about open source security in terms of whether there is an advantage or disadvantage to its use in the business world.
The reality of open source security is that open source has its advantages and disadvantages. The most widely used argument for not using open source is the additional layer of security through obscurity a closed application provides.
This argument is misleading. An open source operating system contains many thousands of lines of code, and the complexity of reading and understanding the entire open source code and then spotting and exploiting vulnerabilities in the code is an arduous task that is difficult and often requires highly specialist knowledge.
On top of that, when speaking to many open source users, penetration testers and hackers, you could count on one hand the number that would even be interested in reading and understanding such large applications. They prefer to use the open source operating systems and the plethora of tools that have already been written to test closed source applications. It’s just that much easier.
Although the argument for security through obscurity is a powerful one, its significance is overplayed within the open source debate as a serious attempt to find a system vulnerability begins with the attacker writing a specific application to look for system vulnerabilities – a tactic that works equally well on open and closed source systems.
Open source in business can offer organisations a significant advantage and should not be overlooked because of concerns over security. Although this is an important issue to any organisation, data and system security can be equally or more secure with an open source system than the alternative.
Both open and closed source systems have advantages and disadvantages. Although security experts are unlikely to unanimously agree on the best route for an organisation to take, it is critical that organisations protect their most important asset, their data, regardless of which path they take.
Can open source be secure in business? Yes – but organisations should not rush into an open source system without considering all of the other issues that come as part of the package. Ultimately open source is a moving target, closed source is a stationary target – both are targets that need protecting.
Cloud to go open-source
One of the world’s largest cloud providers is to go open-source in a move that could eventually have a big impact on business processes and security.
According to Rackspace, the second largest cloud provider on the planet, opening up their source code could help quell security fears over cloud technology.
The company also hopes that by making the code for their new “Openstack” platform freely available they can accelerate its development and in the long-term grow the cloud market.
The code for “Openstack” was developed in partnership with NASA and will now go head-to-head with competing platforms such as Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).
Cyberbyte Solutions Update
Lots of things have been brewing in the background, we have some more work to do and a clean-up operation but Cyberbyte Solutions is a maturing entity. Exciting times lie ahead, we have a wealth of new open source discoveries to share with you and professional services to offer throughout the Yorkshire and Humberside area. Services include IT support, Hardware Break/Fix, Cloud Computing Hosting and Solutions, Web Hosting, Web Design and Development, consultancy and more.
Please get in touch to find out more information regarding any of our services and leave your comments on our posts!
New site branding
The third rendition of Cyberbyte Solutions is now in progress. Sticking with our Open Source philosophy but taking a more professional approach. We hope you like it and we hope to restore most of the historic content as soon as possible.
Open Cart
I recently put another open source solution to the test, that being OpenCart. I’m not talking about a Bruge horse drawn tourist attraction either. OpenCart is one of a few open source e-commerce platforms which I thought stood out. Its default look and feel is very comforting with a familiar ‘ebay’ sense to it.
It made me question how much design and effort should be put into e-commerce solutions. If hundreds of thousands of users are comfortable with a format already why change it?
I actually think it is quite remarkable what the OpenCart community have achieved. With a bit of hosting space with PHP and a MySQL database you can have OpenCart up and running within minutes. The admin side is equally, if not more impressive providing all the tools to effectively run an on-line business.
OK, so creating a custom theme was a little quirky and I experienced a couple of odd PHP errors while playing around with moving graphic uploads via the admin panel but once these initial ‘quirks’ are ironed out the result is rather impressive. I was so impressed I’ve decided to use it for Cyberbyte Solutions project instead of the comparatively limited WordPress plug-in.