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Trend Micro Chairman Says Open Source Is a Security Risk

Posted by Soulskill on from the with-friends-like-these dept.

dkd903 writes "Steve Chang, the Chairman of Trend Micro, has kicked up a controversy by claiming that open source software is inherently less secure than closed source. When talking about the security of smartphones, Chang claimed that the iPhone is more secure than Android because being an open-source platform lets attackers know more about the underlying architecture." This comes a week after Trend Micro released a mobile security app for Android.

5 of 258 comments (clear)

  1. Right. by DWMorse · · Score: 3, Informative

    Right. And the color yellow is more secure than the color blue.

    --
    There's a spot in User Info for World of Warcraft account names? Really?
  2. Security Through Obscurity by Lazareth · · Score: 3, Informative

    What Chang is basically saying is that "security through obscurity is inherently more safe than proper implementation" - something that was proven wrong a long time ago. Sure, when you got the implementation right, open source or closed source, extra obscurity won't hurt other than possibly maintenance, but prioritizing it is a misapplication of resources.

  3. Re:Security through obscurity doesn't work by mlts · · Score: 4, Informative

    If people dumped Windows for open source, there will still be a large market for AV utilities, for legal reasons.

    There are a lot of companies where I had to spec out antivirus solutions for AIX, Solaris, RedHat, and OS X just for CYA reasons. Not like all the LPARs on the pSeries 795 in the server room is going to get infected, but because it is a checkbox on a contract that "all computers on the corporate network will have antivirus software on them."

  4. Re:Security through obscurity doesn't work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Which is the very definition of conflict of interest.

  5. Re:Security through obscurity doesn't work by mlush · · Score: 3, Informative

    >>>Open Source does not punish them for the effrontery of disclosing them.

    Punish them? What you say?

    Like this