Introduction
Open source software is software with source code that anyone can inspect, modify, and enhance. The very nature of open source software development and licensing creates unique data security risks that must be considered. As open source usage continues to grow, it’s important for developers and companies adopting open source software to understand these risks.
Visibility of Source Code
One of the defining characteristics of open source software is that the source code is freely available for anyone to view. While visibility allows for collaboration and innovation, it also means malicious actors can easily inspect the code to find vulnerabilities.
Some key risks include:
- Bad actors can view the source code to find flaws and weaknesses they can exploit.
- Vulnerabilities may be discovered faster than the open source project can patch them.
- Sensitive information like passwords, API keys, and endpoints may be exposed.
Mitigating these risks requires rigorous security reviews of the source code, limiting sensitive data in the code, and rapid patching of discovered vulnerabilities. Security testing and audits by independent parties can help.
Lack of Verification of Contributors
Most open source projects allow anyone to contribute code changes through pull requests. This allows for crowdsourced development, but also allows potential vulnerabilities to be introduced:
- Contributors with malicious intent can introduce subtle vulnerabilities like backdoors.
- Well-meaning but inexperienced contributors may introduce bugs and flaws.
- Difficult to trace who introduced any given piece of code.
Thoroughly reviewing contributions and requiring verification of contributor identities via signed commits can improve security here. However, limited maintainer resources often prevent exhaustive reviews.
Dependency Security Risks
Open source projects frequently depend on code from other open source libraries and packages. Vulnerabilities in these dependencies can affect the security of the overall project.
- Most open source projects have dozens of transitive dependencies.
- Lack of visibility into dependency code can obfuscate vulnerabilities.
- Dependency vulnerabilities may be fixed slowly or never.
Carefully choosing dependencies, monitoring for vulnerabilities, and keeping dependencies up-to-date is necessary to mitigate this risk. Snyk and GitHub Dependabot automatically monitor dependencies.
Infrequent Security Updates
Securing open source requires dedicated resources. Because most projects rely on volunteer maintainers, security fixes may happen slowly:
- Finding skilled volunteers to implement security fixes can be challenging.
- Lack of funding for security audits and testing.
- Other feature development and bug fixes often take priority over security.
Supporting critical open source projects financially allows maintainers to prioritize security appropriately. Companies relying on open source should consider contributing resources.
Balancing Openness and Security
The openness that makes open source software flexible and innovative also enables security risks. However, steps can be taken to strike the right balance:
- Security reviews and testing before release using tools like static analysis and fuzzing.
- Requiring contributor verification and signed, traceable commits.
- Encouraging responsible public disclosure of vulnerabilities.
- Building a robust, dedicated maintainer community.
While open source presents unique security challenges, following best practices can help identify and minimize risks. Ultimately, open collaboration drives innovation that improves software security overall.
