Open source software is an easier hack: Mitnick

Monday, 30 January 2006, 8:19 PM EST

In an exclusive interview on Friday, infamous hacker Kevin Mitnick told Tectonic that, given the choice between finding security vulnerabilities in closed and open source, he'd prefer to attack an open source environment.

“Open source would be easier [to hack],” admits ex-hacker turned security consultant Mitnick. “It's less work.” Mitnick says that open source software is easier to analyse for security holes, since you can see the code. Proprietary software, on the other hand, requires either reverse engineering, getting your hands on illicit copies of the source code, or using a technique called “fuzzing”.

By Jason Norwood-Young at Tectonic

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