Open security is the use of

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

philosophies and methodologies to approach

computer security Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, the ...

and other

information security Information security, sometimes shortened to InfoSec, is the practice of protecting information by mitigating information risks. It is part of information risk management. It typically involves preventing or reducing the probability of unauthorize ...

challenges. Traditional application security is based on the premise that any application or service (whether it is

malware Malware (a portmanteau for ''malicious software'') is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, depri ...

or desirable) relies on

security through obscurity Security through obscurity (or security by obscurity) is the reliance in security engineering on design or implementation secrecy as the main method of providing security to a system or component. History An early opponent of security through ob ...

. Open source approaches have created technology such as

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

(and to some extent, the

Android operating system Android is a mobile operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software, designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Android is developed by a consortium of deve ...

). Additionally, open source approaches applied to documents have inspired

wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...

s and their largest example,

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

. Open security suggests that security breaches and vulnerabilities can be better prevented or ameliorated when users facing these problems collaborate using open source philosophies. This approach requires that users be legally allowed to collaborate, so relevant software would need to be released under a license that is widely accepted to be open source; examples include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) license, the Apache 2.0 license, the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), and the GNU General Public License (GPL). Relevant documents would need to be under a generally accepted "open content" license; these include Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) and Attribution Share Alike (CC-BY-SA) licenses, but not Creative Commons "non-commercial" licenses or "no-derivative" licenses. On the developer side, legitimate software and service providers can have independent verification and testing of their source code. On the

information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system (I ...

side, companies can aggregate common threats, patterns, and security solutions to a variety of security issues.

References

{{reflist Computer security Free software culture and documents Free culture movement

See also

References