Re: Open source vs. proprietary software

Dear Paul,

>From an Information Systems & Security Auditor’s perspective I’d like to state that

Security and Controls Implementation on Open Source is far superior in comparison to its proprietary closed source counterparts.

Although the intricacies of Security and Implementation of Controls on either technology are at par, however pragmatically speaking, Implementation of Controls against profiled Risks in a computing environment such as Open Source i.e. (white box-approach) is relatively trivial due to easy integration and availability of code review.

The massive pool of independent audits by the open source community has proven open source to hold lesser residual risk, as vulnerabilities are discovered and patched in a timely manner.

As regards “Co-Existent Issues” (of both technologies in humdrum) is concerned, the implementation is widely practiced, specially considering a DMZ environment. Where essentially the objective is to distribute the risk associated with publicly connected networks by applying the approach of layered defence.

As far as the Implementation of controls vis-à-vis Firewalls and Intrusion Detection Systems (to accommodate the requirement of, preventive and detective controls respectively against profiled and identified risks involved in information processing facilities) are mere gadgets that have no influence and / or issues of incompatibility with each other and / or servers (be they mail/file/print/application/intranet/extranet/web).

The crux of the matter is that “FSF & GNU stand for freedom and security” and it’s not just a cliché

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Regards