Steps To Secure Your Open Source Technology

Here are some ways to ensure that you safeguard your open source technology.

Of late we have been hearing a lot about the vulnerability of the open source technology, with some security breaches to back the claim. Ryan Berg, who is the chief security officer of Sonatype and former Cloud security strategy lead at IBM shared ways to minimise the threat to an open source model in businesses. He feels that this will help safeguard the component layer by instituting good component practice. Step 1: It is imperative to have an open source policy in place in organisations. For companies who already have one, should review it to identify loopholes. The policy should be clear (and agreed upon) to both the development team and to those who manage the security process such as risk management and legal. Steo 2: The policy should have key guidelines for component security, licensing and quality attributes. It should also cover guidelines that clearly lay out usage decisions like age of component at download, license-type, level of documentation. Step 3: These policies should not be in place just for the sake of it, instead it should be seriously followed. While it is easy to ignore paper-based policies, try to look for ways to integrate enforcement into the software development process itself. Step 4: Developers should have the power of information, else they will fail to make good choices and will face issues fighting back. If flaws are identified well in time, it can not only save time but also money. Step 5: If you know the inventory components and their dependencies before going into production, you will be able to carry out the troubleshooting easily and can even work on the vulnerabilities that may be discovered later. Step 6: It is important to keep an eye out for flaws that are discovered. New loopholes keep emerging and you have to keep an eye out for where it is being used exactly. Step 7: When faced with problems, have your plan in place. You should know how to fix the issue, irrespective of where it occurs. There can be last minute surprises by having a plan surely helps.