Since Apache Maven, the brainchild of Sonatype founder Jason van Zyl, emerged as a top-level Apache Software Foundation project in 2003, the Central Repository has become a primary source of open source components. Jackson says the Central Repository receives four billion requests per year for its 300,000 components. . But after crunching the data on how the Central Repository's components are used--with the help of application security specialist Aspect Security--Jackson says he believes organizations need to be much more diligent in their practices around open source components because many are exposing themselves to risk by deploying older, vulnerable versions of components. The link for this article located at Network World is no longer available. . Firms need to bolster their efforts in overseeing open source elements to reduce hazards associated with obsolete iterations.. Open Source Components, Application Security, Component Risk. . LinuxSecurity.com Team
The Mozilla developers have announced that Firefox 3.6 will "lockdown" the components directory of the browser to stop third party applications bypassing the standard add-ons and plug-in support by pushing user invisible changes directly into Firefox. From today's planned release of Firefox 3.6's beta 3, and onwards, the components directory will be for Firefox code only and third party developers will only be able to extend the browser through the officially supported add-ons system.. Johnathan Nightingale, "Human Shield" at Mozilla, announced the change in a blog posting where he explained that the change in policy was driven by a need to increase the stability of Firefox. Extensions that are installed through the components directory, called "raw components", are not visible in the users Add-On Manager dialogue and do not carry version information with them. This means that neither Firefox or the user can detect out of date versions of these extensions, or update or disable them. The link for this article located at H Security is no longer available. . Johnathan Nightingale, 'Human Shield' at Mozilla, announced the change in a blog posting where he ex. mozilla, developers, announced, firefox, 'lockdown', components, directory. . LinuxSecurity.com Team
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