Re:New Mac ransomware spreading through piracy
by raesene9 on Wednesday July 01, 2020 @08:21AM
(#23700575)
There are a number of cases, even with just bugs, which won't be deliberately hidden (unlike malicious software) where critical security issues have gone unnoticed in major open source software packages for year (e.g. shellshock).
Then you have the fact that if it's deliberately malicious things can be hidden such that even experienced code reviewers (who are not plentiful) could be fooled. A good example of this is the underhanded C contest http://www.underhanded-c.org/_page_id_2.html .
Sure an open source user may catch malicious behaviour, but then security researchers find malicious behaviour in closed source software pretty regularly via reverse engineering or binary analysis.
This isn't an anti-open source thing, it's a reflection that open source often isn't much of a signal of safety, unless further work has been done and continues to be done on a regular basis.
Then you have the fact that if it's deliberately malicious things can be hidden such that even experienced code reviewers (who are not plentiful) could be fooled. A good example of this is the underhanded C contest http://www.underhanded-c.org/_page_id_2.html .
Sure an open source user may catch malicious behaviour, but then security researchers find malicious behaviour in closed source software pretty regularly via reverse engineering or binary analysis.
This isn't an anti-open source thing, it's a reflection that open source often isn't much of a signal of safety, unless further work has been done and continues to be done on a regular basis.