Open vs Closed - Which is more secure?

1. OPEN vs CLOSED: Which is more secure? Yossi Hasson http://twitter.com/yossihasson yossih@synaq.com

2. OPEN VS CLOSED WHICH IS MORE SECURE

3. The debate I’m closed. I’m more secure Open is better!

7. Kerckhoff’s Principle “the system must not require secrecy and can be stolen by the enemy without causing trouble. ” - Auguste Kerckhoff, 1883

8. at SYNAQ we believe that good OPEN SOURCE projects lead to better software being developed and are therefore generally more secure

9. WHY

10. WHAT IS OPEN SOURCE

11. Richard Stallman 1983 “ Free software' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, think of ‘free’ as in ‘free speech’ ” not as in ‘free beer’

12. Linus Torvalds 1991 “ Hello everybody out there using minix. I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big ” and professional like gnu) for 386(486)AT clones.

13. Eric Raymond 1998 “ People are imperfect. What we have learned through the ages, though, is that combining lots of people creates a better end result, ... For some reason, we forgot that when it came to developing software. ”

14. OSS Definition 1.  Free Redistribution 2.  Source Code 3.  Derived Works 4.  Integrity of The Author’s Source Code 5.  No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups 6.  No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor 7.  Distribution of License 8.  License Must Not Be a Specific to a Product 9.  License Must Not Restrict Other Software 10. License Must Be Technology Neutral Source: www.opensource.org

15. WHAT IS CLOSED SOURCE

16. Source code of the software is not available, or the licensor does not grant the freedoms to use, modify, and distribute that are granted by free software licenses. - Source: Wikipedia

17. “ Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free? - Bill Gates, 1976

18. “ There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don't think that those incentives should exist - Bill Gates, 2005

19. “ Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches - Steve Ballmer, 2001

20. WHAT PRIMARILY DRIVES BOTH

21. Closed Source

22. Open Source  Status  Contribution  Social Capital  Ideology  In some cases: Making money

23. WHATS THIS GOT TO DO WITH SOFTWARE SECURITY

24. $ TIME

25. “ In an open source project, to make a mistake and have it known to the entire development community and your friends is mortifying to the extreme …. the last moment before hitting the Enter key – to commit a change or send a patch out into the cold cruel world of your peers – is ” the longest moment imaginable - Michael H. Warfield senior researcher Internet Security Systems

27. Factors to Consider   Time to compromise   Speed at which flaws are fixed   Number of vulnerabilities   Major virus outbreaks   Trust

28. Time to Compromise •  Time taken to compromise an un-patched Linux vs Windows XP machine VS

29. Time to Compromise Linux Windows XP 3 Months* 4 Minutes (pre SP2)* 18 Minutes (post SP2)** WINNER Source: * Honeynet “Know Your Enemy: Trend Analysis” (2004) ** Symantec’s Internet Security Threat Report (2004)

30. Bugs

31. Bugs Article “Apache avoids most security woes” found Apache’s last serious security problem was announced in January 1997 Article “IT bugs over IIS security” found Microsoft had reported 21 security bulletins over the period - 8 of which rated highly dangerous in comparison to 0 for Apache over the same period Source: eWeek & www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html

32. Fixing Flaws

33. Fixing Flaws #1 VS VS

34. Fixing Flaws #1 Vendor Number Advisories Average Time to Resolve After Discovery 31 11.2 days 61 16.1 days 8 89.5 days Source: SecurityPortal WINNER

35. Fixing Flaws #2 VS

36. Fixing Flaws #2 The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) recommended using browsers other than Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer (IE) for security reasons. Microsoft had failed to patch a critical vulnerability for 9 months, and IE was being actively exploited in horrendous ways. Source: US Department of Homeland Security, CERT

37. Fixing Flaws #2 Mozilla Firefox fixed its According to Symantec Corp., vulnerabilities faster, and had fewer severe vulnerabilities than Internet Explorer WINNER Source: Symantec, 2004

38. Fixing Flaws #3 VS

39. Fixing Flaws #3 eWeek Labs’ article “Open Source Quicker at Fixing Flaws” listed Serious flaw was specific examples of more rapid response. found in the Apache Web server; the Apache Software Foundation made a patch available two days after the Web server hole was announced. WINNER Source: eWeek, article: “Open Source Quicker at Fixing Flaws”

40. Virus Outbreaks Computer viruses are overwhelmingly more prevalent on Windows than any other system.

41. Virus Outbreaks VS

42. Virus Outbreaks #1 Microsoft IIS features twice as often (49% vs. 23%) as a malware distributing server. WINNER Source: Google, Online Security Blog (2007)

43. Who to Trust?

44. Who to Trust? #1 European Parliament calls “on the Commission and Member States to promote software projects whose source text is made public (open-source software), as this is the only way of guaranteeing that no backdoors are built into programmes [and calls] on the Commission to lay down a standard for the level of security of e-mail software packages, placing those packages whose source code has not been made public in the ‘least reliable’ category” (5 September, 2001; 367 votes for, 159 against and 39 abstentions). Source: European Parliament A5-0264/2001

45. Who to Trust? #2 •  April 2000 discovery Frontpage contained a deliberate “backdoor” •  Remained undetected for more than 4 years Source: TruSecure, Paper: Open Source Security

46. Who to Trust? #3 •  Some time between 1992 and 1994 •  “Back door” inserted in the DB server InterBase •  Vulnerability stayed for 6 years •  Borland released source code July 2000 as OSS/ FS •  Firebird launched •  5 months later CERT identified the vulnerability and it was patched shortly after

47. Microsoft EULA - XP #4

48. Comparison EULA to GPL EULA GPL Percentage of license which limits 45% 27% your rights Percentage of the license which 15% 51% extends your rights Percentage of license which limits 40% 22% your remedies Source: Cybersource, a comparison of the GPL and the Microsoft EULA

49. The Tally Factor Open Source Closed Source Time to compromise ✔ ✖ Number critical bugs ✔ ✖ Speed at fixing flaws ✔ ✖ Number of Viruses ✔ ✖ Who to trust ✔ ✖

50. Conclusion •  “Openness” of source code is 1 factor of many when considering security •  Being open doesn’t automatically mean more secure •  Underlying driving motives for open source can lead to better software development •  History has shown that good open source projects tend to be more secure then their closed counterparts •  It’s a question of who to put your trust in

51. Thank You & Remember

52. References •  Why open source? (David Wheeler) •  IBM, The security implications of open source software •  Open source versus closed source security (Jason Miller) •  Open source security: A look at the security benefits of source code access (TruSecure) 5 2

53. Questions and Further Information yossih@synaq.com 011 262 3632

Open vs Closed - Which is more secure?

Open vs Closed - Which is more secure?

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