Emerging Framework for The Evaluation of Open Source Security Tools

The drive from the South African Government towards the adoption of open source software across all platforms, incurred a number of research and development questions. The open source domain provides especially SMME’s with options to implement high quality software that are financially viable. Although software costs is a major factor within providing proper working environments, specific security issues pertaining to open source needs to be addressed. With the opening of networks as well as the availability of information, companies need not only implement security policies, but also constantly upgrade implementations. The study of open source security issues as well as the actual evaluation of tools therefore becomes essential. The purpose of this paper is to study the security issues within the open source environment and looking specifically at the use of security software originating from the open source domain. We provide details and results of surveys conducted around the adoption of security tools within South African companies. The study leads to us proposing a emerging framework for the evaluation of open source security tools.