[DLC] Fwd: [ISN] Open source security bugs uncovered

[Larry Garfield]

Now if we were smart, we'd spin the story properly:

Security researchers have found 180 leading open source applications to be 
only 0.1% insecure.  Meanwhile, 400 large proprietary companies declined to 
comment on how buggy their software is.  

On Thursday 10 January 2008, Jamesha Y Fisher wrote:
> Something Interesting to look at for the Security Linux People(or just any
> people in general).
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: InfoSec News <alerts at infosecnews.org>
> Date: Jan 10, 2008 12:16 AM
> Subject: [ISN] Open source security bugs uncovered
> To: isn at infosecnews.org
>
>
> http://www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?newsID=11086
>
> By Matthew Broersma
> Techworld
> 09 January 2008
>
> A US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) bug-fixing scheme has
> uncovered an average of one security glitch per 1,000 lines of code in
> 180 widely used open source software projects.
>
> The programme, called the Open Source Hardening Project, is sponsored by
> the DHS and carried out by Coverity and Stanford University. Launched in
> March 2006, the $300,000 project was initially launched to review the
> code of 180 open source software projects frequently used by developers
> of government websites and application developers.
>
> All the software scrutinised was found to have significant numbers of
> security flaws, Coverity said on Wednesday. Since 2006 the project has
> helped fix 7,826 open source flaws in 250 projects, out of 50 million
> lines of code scanned, the company said.
>
> Coverity also scans proprietary software, handling about 400 product
> lines for private customers, but said its private clients don't tend to
> disclose information about bugs found in their products.
>
> Many of the open source projects scanned have been assiduous in
> repairing the bugs that have turned up, and on Wednesday Coverity
> advanced the first batch of 11 open source projects to its second stage
> of the bug-cleansing process, called Rung 2. Many more remain on Rung 1
> or even Rung 0, meaning they haven't yet begun to fix the flaws
> identified.
>
> The 11 projects are Amanda, NTP, OpenPAM, OpenVPN, Overdose, Perl, PHP,
> Postfix, Python, Samba, and TCL. Other popular software the project has
> scrutinised include Apache, the Linux kernel and Firefox.
>
> Rung 2 is the highest security level yet reached under the DHS project,
> and was attained by eliminating several classes of security and quality
> defects, according to Coverity open source strategist David Maxwell.
>
> For instance, 236 flaws were uncovered in 450,000 lines of Samba code,
> of which 228 have been corrected.
>
> Having passed to the next level, Coverity will provide the projects with
> an updated version of its scanner product, which will allow developers
> to identify still more flaws.
>
> The Rung 2 scanning service will be upgraded from version 2.4 to version
> 3.6 of Coverity's Prevent bug-scanning product, Coverity said. The
> latest version in commercial use is 3.8.
>
> The bug checks are carried out via Coverity's Scan website.
>
>
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-- 
Larry Garfield			AIM: LOLG42
larry at garfieldtech.com		ICQ: 6817012

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