Securing your data is extremely crucial. And that makes the role of your underlying software and platforms equally crucial.

In the modern business world, having a robust enterprise IT security system in place is essential for ensuring seamless execution of projects while at the same time securing your confidential data. Enterprises are spending more than ever before on security as there have been advancements in hacking technologies like honeypots, intrusion detection systems, and other security-related software and hardware solutions. Thus, there has been a greater need for a significant digital transformation now more than ever before within the information security domain.

A vast majority of open source software systems get hacked as a result of improper installation, configuration, maintenance and not following the best practices. The main difference between open source and commercial software is the great amount of support that open source receives which has multiple vendors and bigger communities that can provide the best practices to increase the knowledge base of its users. On the other hand, commercial software relies upon commercial vendors and smaller communities for understanding the best practices while dealing with open source!

Gartner in one of its reports stated that enterprises will end up spending around $2 billion in India on data security and privacy alone. Enterprises in Singapore will increase their spending at a 9.8% compound annual growth rate between 2020-2025 and are estimated to reach $2.3 billion in yearly investments by mid-decade.

This year alone, there has been a focus on protecting mission-critical digital investments that will drive double-digital annual growth. Cybersecurity Ventures has predicted that this year’s expenditure is set to increase from $262.4 billion to $458.9 billion in 2025.

The increasing awareness of the various benefits of risk assessment has showcased the realization that security has become one of the biggest driving factors for digital transformation in boosting enterprise security at a global level.

Since time immemorial, there’s been a debate between open source and proprietary (commercial) software enthusiasts, with both sides highlighting their concerns and plus points. However, analytical firms such as 451 Research, Forrester, and Gartner have reported that open source components have been used by 80-90% of commercial software developers. This demonstrates the confidence developers have in open source security systems and hence makes it a completely integral requisite for businesses.

How is open source more secure for organizations?

In a recent open source survey for SEA and India, 97% of the participating organizations cited better security as an important factor in the adoption of Open Source Software. And, 99% of participants stated open source makes for a ‘Higher quality software’ compared to commercial software.

If the statistics are anything to go by, enterprises are clearly picking more secure, scalable, high quality and agile open source software options.

Let’s look at the top 3 reasons why open source software is considered more secure than commercial or proprietary software.

1. A vast community looks after the code to solve security issues

   It is a myth that open source security is weaker because the source code is kept open to everyone. This used to be an old argument made against open source, claiming that there are fewer open source security tools and it is relatively easy for hackers to find vulnerabilities within the system. But with time, this has been proven wrong. Today, be it leading organizations or developers driving innovations globally, both prefer to use open source software compared to commercial ones. This is mainly for the higher security, innovation, and agility that it provides.

   Open source consulting firms have proved that security vulnerabilities are often more likely to be discovered and patched much quicker if you compare them to commercial software. The massive pool of open source contributors is working round the clock to keep improving the security and features, as they are constantly interacting, reviewing, and modifying the code.

   The open source community brings frequent product updates and timely release of new patches, thus addressing bugs and security vulnerabilities at a far quicker rate, eventually impacting software quality and your project’s timelines.

2. Open source software has shorter life cycles compared to commercial software

   Commercial software vendors require a much longer release lifecycle in fixing vulnerabilities usually occurring in cycles of 6-12 months before they enter the market. This essentially occurs due to the huge investments and logistical hiccups in constantly releasing software updates. Besides, it can take months and even years for commercial vendors to discover and address vulnerabilities in their software.

   However, open source software is constantly being built and frequently used by a vast majority of the community of users, contributors, and moderators whose main aim is to troubleshoot errors and provide security upgrades from time to time. This in turn ensures your applications or workloads and projects can be tested and launched much faster, ensuring a swifter go-to-market.

   Additionally, specialized consulting and services partners for open source can offer unbiased insights and planned approaches in the product’s adoption and sustenance process. So, whether it is technical services or managed services for open source, the vendors provide end-to-end support for easy adoption and transition.

3. Innovation is faster with open source software compared to commercial

   The best thing about open source is that its massive ecosystem of innovators is no longer looking for resources. They have rather created a process of sharing knowledge with others in the open source community to create newer resources and opportunities. Open source delivers complex new-age initiatives in lesser time and with reduced man-hours for the completion of projects in the pipeline.

   Open source components are the foundation for DevOps, cloud, containers, Kubernetes, and others, placing them at the heart of modern software development. The Open Source Survey 2022 for Southeast Asia and India indicated that 82% of IT leaders today use open source technologies to drive innovation in their organizations.

   In 2020, globally, 93% of hiring managers reported difficulty in finding sufficient talent with open source skills. While it is easy to develop on community open source, bringing aboard an experienced service provider or commercial vendor can ensure that projects are successfully delivered or managed. Due to the inexperience of the enterprise with the software, enterprise may require greater support especially in resolving issues.

   Sharing some customer scenarios and success stories of open source, please check out the case studies mentioned below:

   How an Infrastructure Log Monitoring platform designed using ELK for a leading Bank in Asia helped the bank get a centralized view of their container platforms across multiple data centers.

   Open source technologies provide superior customer experience to an Insurance giant in Indonesia, helping it win new customers through a successful mobile application.

   An intelligent infrastructure monitoring platform built by Ashnik for a Fortune 500 Fintech company helped reduce customer onboarding time, and better SLAs for business-critical workloads cost-efficiently.

   How a real-time solution to enhance the customer experience helped a major Indian bank improve their overall performance through increased replica shards, and fixed the timeout issue faced earlier.

If you are looking to get subscriptions, support, or services for open source technologies, talk to Ashnik – a leading open source solutions company in Southeast Asia and India, offering a full-fledged open source technology marketplace, support, solutions, and services for consulting, managed, technical, training and more. Get in touch today!