Open source and proprietary were two different values for many years. One was open and the other was closed. The one was free and the other was expensive. Both were secure and one was a disaster. Each side could make a claim. It’s all so blurry now.
It’s not that open source software is more secure than proprietary software. Or vice versa. Strong contributor communities are a benefit to open source projects. Proprietary software also benefits from solid development practices and organizational resources.
The real question is: What happens to security when softwares combine?
More than half of closed-source software has been influenced by open source. Developers don’t want reinvent the wheel. But what’s most convenient isn’t always safe.
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It is unfair to assume that open source software is safer than proprietary software. This has been disproven and argued over the years. However, there are still tropes associated each software framework.
Proprietary software works on the principle of “security through obscurity,” meaning that only employees or contractors with privileged access to the source code can create, access and maintain it. This model allows a small team to develop and test the software. The software is only visible to the outside world after the organization has completed its quality assurance (QA).
Developers of proprietary software are driven by commercial priorities. Release timing is determined by financial imperatives (think constrained development cost) and the need to provide specific functionality. They can detect bugs in proprietary software, develop and distribute patches, but customer administrators must apply them to reduce vulnerabilities.
These drivers are less detrimental to open source projects. Open source projects tend to have shorter releases intervals. Open source projects also have a larger community of developers and testers. You can report bugs in the open-source release and offer fixes that can be distributed to the entire community.
Open source software (OSS), is more secure because it is open to all members of the community to review and test the code. It is also available to anyone who wishes to use it in its entirety or in part.
Proprietary is no longer proprietary
There is a chance that your code contains open source snippets. This could make your software less secure. In the early days of coding, every line was the product of the developers who wrote it. This is not true today. Open source technology has enabled many companies to use the enhancements it offers, regardless of whether they are aware of them.
According to an Open Source Security and Risk Analysis 2017 (OSSRA) report, 96 percent of commercial applications were analyzed for open source software elements. On average, there were 257 open source components per app. This is because open source software generally costs less, takes longer to market, and allows developers to be more productive.
This is a problem in terms of security.
Many developers are involved in reviewing the code base of open source communities. Open source projects don’t always have a large contributor pool. They also may not be able to review the entire code base. It’s possible for problems not to be noticed until someone exploits them.
The Heartbleed bug in OpenSSL’s cryptography library was an example. It was discovered two years ago. We should also mention that Apple, the ‘poster boy’ of proprietary closed-source software, also had a critical security hole in their SSL implementation prior to Heartbleed.
Once you have taken the code,
