“David Harmon, AMD’s director of software program engineering, emphasizes the vital importance of open supply.” The organization fosters a collaborative environment that drives technological advancements. Discerning customers are empowered to inspect the code themselves, meticulously evaluating its legitimacy and usefulness in achieving their desired outcome.
While open-source software (OSS) offers numerous benefits, it can also quietly undermine a company’s security stance by concealing latent vulnerabilities that may evade the attention of overburdened IT teams, given the increasing prevalence of cyberattacks specifically targeting OSS. Open-source software (OSS) can potentially contain vulnerabilities that might be leveraged to gain unauthorized access to sensitive systems or networks. While open-source software (OSS) offers numerous benefits, it is crucial to recognize that malicious actors might intentionally inject vulnerabilities, or “backdoors,” which can jeopardize the safety of a company.
“Open-source technology enables productivity and collaboration,” says Vlad Korsunsky, Microsoft’s VP of Cloud and Enterprise Security, “but it also poses significant security risks.” A significant portion of the problem arises from open-source introducing code into the group that can be burdensome to verify and challenging to debug. Firms often struggle with the opacity surrounding open-source code modifications, lacking insight into both the individuals responsible for these changes and their underlying motivations – a knowledge gap that can significantly enhance an organisation’s vulnerability exposure.
As Open Source Systems (OSS) gains widespread acceptance, concerns surrounding cloud computing’s unique security vulnerabilities are simultaneously escalating. Cloud-native applications running on open-source software, analogous to Linux, yield substantial benefits, including enhanced flexibility, expedited deployment of new software features, streamlined infrastructure management, and amplified resilience. However, they can also inadvertently create blind spots in a company’s safety posture, potentially overburdening busy growth and safety teams with perpetual risk alerts and endless safety enhancement to-dos.
“When migrating to the cloud, the entire risk landscape undergoes a significant transformation,” Harmon notes. While issue efficiencies share a connection, safety concerns demonstrate a much stronger correlation. “No chief technology officer should remain oblivious to breach-related headlines.”
As organizations increasingly eschew data isolationism, adopting a multi-cloud strategy has become increasingly prevalent: according to a prominent cloud provider, a staggering 89% of businesses now operate across multiple cloud platforms. Cloud spend and security concerns top the list of cloud computing challenges for most organizations. According to a recent report by a leading safety agency, an astonishing 95% of organizations it surveyed had fallen victim to a cloud-related breach within the 18-month period preceding the investigation.
Code-to-cloud safety
Until now, organizations have typically relied on safety testing and evaluation to scrutinize software’s outputs and identify potential safety issues that require rectification. In recent times, identifying and mitigating safety risks demands a more comprehensive approach that extends beyond simply examining configurations at runtime. Organizations should strive to identify and address the root cause of problems rather than simply treating their symptoms.
Ensuring harmony between competing demands is the daunting task facing IT security teams, as aptly described by Korsunsky. Despite establishing a seamless code-to-cloud integration, apprehension often prevails among safety teams regarding deployment of repairs, particularly when there’s uncertainty about their potential impact on business operations. While a repair may boost safety, it could also compromise the appliance’s performance, ultimately affecting workers’ productivity in a negative manner.
