I support free and open source software (FOSS) like VLC, Qbittorrent, Libre Office, Gimp…
But why do people say that it’s as secure or more secure than closed source software? From what I understand, closed source software don’t disclose their code.
If you want to see the source code of Photoshop, you actually need to work for Adobe. Otherwise, you need to be some kind of freaking retro-engineering expert.
But open source has their code available to the entire world on Github or Gitlab.
Isn’t that actually also helping hackers?
Otherwise, you need to be some kind of freaking retro-engineering expert.
Nah, often software is stupidly easy to breach. Often its an openly accessable database (like recently with the Tea app), or that you can pull other data from the webapp just by incrementing or decrementing the ID in your webrequest (that commonly happened with quite a number of digital contact tracing platforms used during Covid).
Very often the closed source just obscures the screaming security issues.
And yeah, there are not enough people to thorouhly audit all the open source code. But there are more people doing that, than you think. And another thing to mind is, that reporting a security problem with a software/service can get you in serious legal trouble depending on your jurisdicting - justified or not. Corporations won’t hesitate to slap suit you out of existance, if they can hide the problems that way. With open source software you typically don’t have any problems like this, since collaboration and transparency is more baked in into it.
Others have mentioned this, but to make sure all context is clear:
- FOSS software is not inherently more secure.
- New FOSS software is probably as secure as any closed source software, because it likely doesn’t have many eyes on it and hasn’t been audited.
- Mature FOSS software will likely have more CVEs reported against it than a closed source alternative, because there are more eyes on it.
- Because of bullet 3, mature FOSS software is typically more secure than closed source, as security holes are found and patched publicly.
- This does not mean a particular closed source tool is insecure, it means the community can’t prove it is secure.
- I like proof, so I choose FOSS.
- Most people agree, which is why most major server software is FOSS (or source available)
- However that’s also because of the permissive licensing.
You live in some Detroit-like hellscape where everyone everywhere 24/7 wants to kill and eat you and your family. You go shopping for a deadbolt for your front door, and encounter two locksmiths:
Locksmith #1 says “I have invented my own kind of lock. I haven’t told anyone how it works, the lock picking community doesn’t know shit about this lock. It is a carefully guarded secret, only I am allowed to know the secret recipe of how this lock works.”
Locksmith #2 says "Okay so the best lock we’ve got was designed in the 1980’s, the design is well known, the blueprints are publicly available, the locksport and various bad guy communities have had these locks for decades, and the few attacks that they made work were fixed by the manufacturer so they don’t work anymore. Nobody has demonstrated a successful attack on the current revision of this lock in the last 16 years.
Which lock are you going to buy?
Or just, you know, move out of Detroit… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It’s not “assumed to be secure.” The source code being publicly available means you (or anyone else) can audit that code for vulnerabilities. The publicly available issue tracking and change tracking means you can look through bug reports and see if anyone else has found vulnerabilities and you can, through the change history and the bug report history, see how the devs responded to issues in the past, how they fixed it, and whether or not they take security seriously.
Open source software is not assumed to be more secure, but it’s security (or lack thereof) is much easier to verify, you don’t have to take the word of the dev as to whether or not it is secure, and (especially for the more popular projects like the ones you listed) you have thousands of people with different backgrounds and varying specialties within programming, with no affiliation with and no reason to trust the project doing independent audits of the code.
Assumed by who?
Because “some nerd out there probably would have found any exploits for the X years its been released” is the general assumption about open source software.
If I can see the code, I can see if said code is doing something fucky. If I can’t see the code, I have to just have faith that it’s not doing something fucky.
You theoretically can see the code. You don’t actually look at it. Nor can you even have the knowledge to understand and see security implications for all the software you use.
In practice it makes little difference for security if you use open or closed source software.
No, you literally can see the code, that’s why it’s open source. YOU may not look at it, but people do. Random people, complete strangers, unpaid and un-vested in the project. The alternative is a company, who pays people to say “Yeah it’s totally safe”. That conflict of interest is problematic. Also, depending on what it’s written in, yes, I do sometimes take the time. Perhaps not for every single thing I run, but any time I run across niche projects, I read first. To claim that someone can’t understand is wild. That’s a stranger on the internet, you’re knowledge of their expertise is 0.
In practice, 1,000 random people with no reason to “trust you, bro” on the internet being able to audit every change you make to your code is far more trustworthy than a handful of people paid by the company they represent. What’s worse, is that if Microsoft were to have a breach, then like maybe 10 people on the planet know about it. 10 people with jobs, mortgages, and families tied to that knowledge. They won’t say shit, because they can’t lose that paycheck. Compare that to say the XZ backdoor where the source is available and gets announced so people know exactly who what and where to resolve the issue.
By your logic no one can break locks because they can’t see it. There are going to be people trying to break into everything even tho they don’t have the source code.
9/10 people looking into your code are the ones using it for themselves, so fixing a bug for everyone is beneficial to them too.
Also, there are entire companies working and sponsoring these projects and paying people to find bugs because if someone finds out that curl has a problem, they are gonna have that too, so the only difference between something like vlc and adobe is that you don’t have to suck their dick really.
There’s also curl and others which are offering bug bounties, since they are way more cost efficient than paying someone full time.
It helps hackers sure, but it also help the community in general also vet the overall quality of the software and tell the others to not use it. When it’s closed source you have no choice but to trust the company behind it.
There’s several FOSS apps I’ve encountered, looked at the code and passed on it because it’s horrible. Someone will inevitably write a blog post about how bad the code is warning people to not use the project.
That said, the code being public for everyone to see also inherently puts a bit of pressure to write good code because the community will roast you if it’s bad. And FOSS projects are usually either backed by a company or individuals with a passion: the former there’s the incentive of having a good image because no company wants to expose themselves cutting corners publicly, and the passion project is well, passion driven so usually also written reasonably well too.
But the key point really is, as a user you have the option to look at it and make your own judgement, and take measures to protect yourself if you must run it.
Most closed source projects are vulnerable because of pressure to deliver fast, and nobody will know until it gets exploited. This leads to really bad code that piles up over time. Try to sneak some bullshit into the Linux kernel and there will be dozens of news article and YouTube videos about Linus’ latest rant about the guilty. That doesn’t happen in private projects, you get a lgtm because the sprint is ending and sales already sold the feature to a customer next week.
One thing people tend to overlook is: Development costs money. Fixing bugs and exploits costs money.
In a closed source application none will see that your software is still working with arcane concepts that weren’t even state-of-the-art when written 25 years ago. The bug that could easily be used as an exploit? Sure, the developer responsible for it did inform his manager around 50 times he needs time and someone from the database team to fix it. And got turned down 50 times as it costs time and “we have to keep deadlines! And none noticed this bug so far,so why should now notice now?”
Lots of open source software uses arcane concepts because lots of it is old. See Xorg as a prime example. That was outdated 20 years ago already.
Closes source software gets exploited and hacked all the time. They take security seriously as well.
Look at OpenSSL and the heartbleed and similar high profile security failures for how even using high profile open source software is not automatically more secure.
You didn’t get my point: On Open Source people know. People know that Xorg is using arcane concepts and as a client you can pay someone to get through the code. Or a governmental institution can. (And yes, mine does with public reports)
This is not the case with closed sources. You will only know when someone has exploited it. And while closed source applications like Windows,Office,etc. are having enough public weight that a lot of people with good intentions see them as a “challenge” and test for exploits. This is already not the case for smaller,but often critical applications. And no,most commercial closed source applications don’t give a fuck about security - even in critical infrastructure. I worked as a PM for these applications in the past and my company now consults for critical infrastructure. The status of security in niche applications is abhorrent. The longest running major exploit I stumbled upon was 22 years old. And left around 65% of all water treatment plants of a smaller nation at risk. (It’s fixed now. Not because they wanted to, but because someone forced them to)
With open source code you get more eyes on it. Issues get fixed quicker.
With closed source, such as Photoshop, only Adobe can see the code. Maybe there are issues there that could be fixed. Most large companies have a financial interest in having “good enough” security.
Its relatively easy. First of all if someone would implement a backdoor its much easier to find out, since you can look at the code directly. Second is, that a lot of people actually do this. Looking at the code of projects and searching for ways to find security holes in it.
So even if it isn’t that much more secure than closed source, its much easier to trust simply because people can search for vulnerabilities much easier.
One great example of why open source code is easier to realise backdoors would be the xz Security breach.
Somewhat of a different take from what I’ve seen from the other comments. In my opinion, the main reason is this:
Companies have basically two reasons to do safety/security: Brand image and legal regulations.
And they have a reason to not do safety/security: Cost pressure.Now imagine a field where there’s hardly any regulations and you don’t really stand out when you do security badly. Then the cost pressure means you just won’t do much security.
That’s the software engineering field.
Now compare that to open-source. I’d argue a solid chunk of its good reputation is from hobby projects, where people have no cost pressure and can therefore take all the time to do security justice.
In particular, you need to remember that most security vulnerabilities are just regular bugs that happen to be exploitable. I have significantly fewer bugs in my hobby projects than in the commercial projects I work on, because there’s no pressure to meet deadlines.And frankly, the brand image applies even to open-source. I will write shitty code, if you pay me to. But if my name is published along with it, you need to pay me significantly more. So, even if it is a commercial project that happens to be published under an open-source license, I will not accept as many compromises to meet deadlines.
It’s not more secure or less secure, but it is easier to trust
One thing to keep in mind is that NO CODE is believed to be secure…regardless of open source or closed source. The difference is that a lot of folk can audit open source whereas we all have to take the word of private companies who are constantly reducing headcount and replacing devs with AI when it comes to closed source.
