Usenix: Experts debate security through diversity

IDG News Service - The sheer number of worms and viruses directed at Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system and Internet Explorer browser have many in the computer industry wondering whether the cyberworld would be more secure if more users relied on alternatives to Microsoft's products.
That description appeared to fit about two-thirds of the few hundred system administrators and engineers attending a debate between two prominent security experts at the Usenix 2004 conference in Boston yesterday. A show of hands before and after the debate indicated that most of those in attendance would prefer a more diverse group of operating system and Web browser software.
A monoculture, whether it be in biological terms or in computing terms, has been shown to be inherently dangerous to members of that group, said Dan Geer, chief scientist at Verdasys Inc. Geer was formerly chief technology officer at security company @stake Inc. until he was fired last year for authoring a report critical of Microsoft's dominance of the computing industry and the insecurity of its products that stems from that position. Microsoft is an @stake client.
Operating-system diversity can be a relevant part of a secure network, but forcing companies to diversify their operating systems is a tough proposition in a time of declining IT budgets and heavy emphasis on return on investment, said Scott Charney, chief trustworthy computing strategist at Microsoft.
Geer likened the evolution of the computing world to the evolution of life on Earth, putting the computer industry at around "the blue-green algae" stage of development. Early organisms were forced to evolve and diversify to deal with threats, and the computer industry must also diversify if it is to confront the serious threat presented by professional hackers, he said.
"Nature has shown us that a monoculture is a primitive state, or a dying gasp," he said.
Not every monoculture leads to strife, Charney countered. He pointed to Southwest Airlines Co., which uses only Boeing 737 airplanes in its fleet. This allows Southwest to take any one of its pilots or maintenance staff and put them to work on any plane in its arsenal, which saves training costs.
The airline's reliance on the 737 is a bit of a gamble, since any directive from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration grounding the 737 would effectively ground all of Southwest Airlines, Charney said. But this is a trade-off that Southwest views as acceptable given the cost savings it realizes from the decision to standardize on the Boeing 737.
Likewise, enterprises that standardize on Microsoft products take a risk