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How long until the entire .gov IT infrastructure gets owned because some civil servant decided to accept a pull request with an obvious backdoor?
by jiggy2011 14y ago
How long until the entire .gov IT infrastructure gets owned because some civil servant decided to accept a pull request with an obvious backdoor?
- LeeHunter 14y agoCould you describe any plausible scenario in which one pull request could compromise the entire .gov IT infrastructure?
- jiggy2011 14y agowow, where to begin?
- LeeHunter 14y agoAnywhere. Just one.
- jiggy2011 14y agoexec()
- LeeHunter 14y agoThat's just code, not a scenario. Government IT systems are currently subject to oversight, testing, comprehensive threat risk assessments etc. Those controls don't disappear just because the software is open source. Right now it's not possible to just deploy new code, open source or not, into a production environment on a critical piece of infrastructure without review. If anything, the open source code should be significantly more secure, because you have added an additional layer of public review, testing and comment.
- jiggy2011 14y agoLet's hope you are right.. :) The UK gov does not have the best record with IT projects.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- benwerd 14y agoIf it's open source, the code will be visible and noticed. In a closed source environment, you could still have the exploit, but it'd be behind closed doors.
- jiggy2011 14y agoThat is assuming the code is well scrutinized and how they manage contributions.