The increasing popularity of open source code can be attributed to the fact that open source projects are collaborative and public in nature. Open source code offers developers a wide variety of advantages, including quality—because they are able to easily use that code freely and can modify it as per their needs; speed—because the tools are already created and developers only need to make minor adjustments, if at all, and merge them; and cost reduction of projects.
However, it does come with a few drawbacks, the most notable of which is security. Open source code may contain vulnerabilities; licensing issues; or be improperly managed, all of which have the potential to affect the organization’s data and security and destroy the organization’s reputation. Even now, there are certain projects that were begun many years ago but are no longer being maintained by anyone. As a result, it is probable that any security flaws that are discovered cannot be resolved.
As a consequence of this, open source security is a vital component of the many different codes that are distributed to the public via open source. It is necessary to perform continuous remediation on all of those initiatives in order to ensure that they are free of vulnerabilities and do not put the organization’s security at risk.
Why Is Remediation Important?
Although not all open-source projects are insecure, the ones that are being used extensively in a great deal of software are being disseminated to a great number of organizations. Even product-based organizations end up inheriting a significant amount of open source code.
Before using any of the open sources in the software, it is essential that an open source review be performed in order to verify that the code can be safely included within the software and to determine whether or not the project or repository is being maintained. This review should also determine whether or not the software is being updated.
If the code is not secure or the repository is not being maintained, then including this in the organization will not be a good idea because any bugs that may appear in the future will not have any fixes available for the same, and the organization will have to find a solution to the problem on their own. As a result, an open-source review needs to be done, and any vulnerabilities that are found ought to be addressed as quickly as possible in order to secure the organization and its infrastructure.
For example, due to a flaw that was discovered in the log library of Apache, the entire internet became susceptible to remote code execution. In such situations, remediation is essential to ensure the security of the organization.
Remediation even helps in increasing the productivity of the software or the developed component. As the efficiency of developers is increased by using open source snippets, those snippets become free of vulnerabilities during the remediation process. Continuous remediation of open source components reduces costs associated with maintaining the project and its dependencies, among other benefits. All of these steps will reduce the amount of work that is required by the teams.
Conclusion
Since so many companies use open-source code or snippets, a growing number of software developers are concentrating their efforts on addressing security flaws in open-source software. However, companies can address these flaws on their own by conducting code reviews.
Remediation of in-house code applications is relatively straightforward. On the other hand, fixing vulnerabilities in open-source software is a significant challenge. So, doing it properly is important. In addition to enhancing overall security, remediation can also play a role in raising the efficiency with which projects are completed. Therefore, before employing any open source projects, make it a point to verify what kind of vulnerabilities they contain and whether or not it is possible for you to fix them before using them.