[news] Microsoft disrupted British MPs’ parliamentary email system

[unixman_again]

Microsoft disrupted British MPs' parliamentary email system - Linux Veda

[fairm010]

Wouldn't the gov using open source software make them more vulnerable to an attack what with it being publicly available code?

[CyberNerd]

Wouldn't the gov using open source software make them more vulnerable to an attack what with it being publicly available code?

 

That is quite an interesting discussion; one the one hand propriety software advocates security by obscurity, whereas opensource means that many can review the code.

I don't think there is much evidence that one is more secure than the other, but there is some that Opensource code is now better quality.

[jinnantonnixx]

Wouldn't the gov using open source software make them more vulnerable to an attack what with it being publicly available code?

 

Not necessarily. There are many variables in the equation, from the "many eyes" checking open source, to the obscurity of closed source.

 

However, there are many techniques used to find vulnerabilities. Being closed source does not prevent disassembly, and analysis. Once such method is the 'genetic algorithm', another popular technique is 'fuzzing'. This is well beyond my sw33t sklz, but I can vaguely follow the principles. Remember though, there are a lot of smart people out there.

"In this paper, Vincenzo Iozzo presents how to effectively fuzz with no knowledge of the user-input and the binary."

Edited July 2, 2015 by jinnantonnixx