Trend Micro Chairman Says Open Source Is a Security Risk

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.

Feh

[Pojut]

They were doing this malarkey at my office a couple of years ago. They were spending all kinds of money on licenses on some sound program from Adobe (it was only going to be used to edit down calls that we recorded in our call center...so, yeah. We didn't really have huge requirements.) I tried convincing them to just use Audacity, but their response was "it's open source, anyone could mess with it, it was probably made by some guy in china, it's free which means it sucks, etc." ::eyeroll:: I tried telling them about how widespread its use is, and how it was made by a former Carnegie-Mellon-current-Google-employee, but they weren't having none of it.

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[account_deleted]

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lol

[jimmerz28]

I have to constantly find open source malware and virus protection because the server/client TrendMicro package we have at my employer doesn't catch anything.

Re:Security through obscurity doesn't work

[fearlezz]

It's not all FUD... open source is actually a security risk... for mr. Chang's wallet.
Remember the lawsuit against clamav [google.com]? And of course, there's the fact that if everyone ditched windows for an open source OS, trend micro wouldn't have many customers anymore.

Re:Security through obscurity doesn't work

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget that the bad guys end up with the source code while the white hats don't get it. Take a look at Windows. The Chinese intel services have the source for it. Russia does too. However, people who need and rely the protection of the OS do not get the source code.

So, the blackhats already have a leg up because they can clear-box their exploits. The whitehats have to keep disassembling stuff in order to have any hope whatsoever.

Because MS doesn't trust people with the source code of their products, how can people trust them?