Improved security through open source deployment

The on-line environment is an increasingly dangerous place, but one which offers many advantages in service delivery.

The activities of crackers (crackers vs hackers - what's in a name?) are generally well publicised, but they are not the only issue that has to be dealt with. Internal security is just as important as exteral security. Significant problems can arise as a result of poor internal security policies and supervision.

Poor security can result in the theft of data, or even more dangerously, tampering with business critical data, both of which cause significant commercial damage every year.

Legislation is also placing new requirements on organisations, particulary in terms of privacy. Interestingly, legislation is recommending that sites are audited for security.

Ensuring you have adequate security is critical for your organisation's well being. Inadequate security can also result in organisational and personal fines, civil law suits and possibly criminal proceedings.

The open source advantage in security

All too often, the problems organisations encounter are due to inherent vulnerabilities (frequently called exploits) in the software they are using. Now, no software is free of bugs (it is written by humans who are prone to error), but well written software has fewer problems that are found more easily and fixed faster without introducing additional bugs.

Open source software has, through its use, earned a reputation for reliability, stability and security that is very hard to equal.

For example, www.whitehouse.gov (the Whitehouse web site) switched to open source at the time of the Code Red worm, specifically to increase system security. The reason for this is that the source code is available and hence a site audit can examine the software in detail, if required.

For more information on how Interweft can help your organisation improve its online security, please contact info@interweft.com.au.

Crackers vs Hackers - what's in a name

Due to a widespread misunderstanding some years ago, people who try to break into computers and sites are generally referred to as hackers by the media and this term is generally understood to have that meaning. The traditional term for this illegal activity is cracker.

The term hacker traditionally meant someone who programmed, who hacked on code - in other words people who create the software that we all use, not bad people at all! Today, many programmers (and this particularly applies in the open source world), refer to themselves proudly as hackers, meaning someone who writes computer programs, reserving the traditional cracker for someone who tries to break into computers and online sites for nefarious purposes.

As Interweft is involved in many different ways with the open source community, we will use the term cracker to denote someone who is a security threat due to their activities and the term hacker for the good people who write software.