Much of the software you use is riddled with security vulnerabilities. Anyone who reads Matthew Garrett knows that most proprietary software is a lost cause. Some Linux advocates claim that free software is more secure than proprietary software, but it’s an open secret that tons of popular desktop Linux applications have many known, unfixed vulnerabilities. I rarely see anybody discuss this, as if it’s taboo, but it’s been obvious to me for a long time.

Usually vulnerabilities go unreported simply because nobody cares to look. Here’s an easy game: pick any application that makes HTTP connections — anything stuck on an old version of WebKit is a good place to start — and look for the following basic vulnerabilities:

Failure to use TLS when required (GNOME Music, GNOME Weather; note these are the only apps I mention here that do not use WebKit). This means the application has no security.

Failure to perform TLS certificate verification (Shotwell and Pantheon Photos). This means the application has no security against active attackers.

Failure to perform TLS certificate verification on subresources (Midori and Xombrero, Liferea). As sites usually send JavaScript in subresources, this means active attackers can get total control of the page by changing the script, without being detected ( update: provided JavaScript is enabled). (Regrettably, Epiphany prior to 3.14.0 was also affected by this issue.)

provided JavaScript is enabled). (Regrettably, Epiphany prior to 3.14.0 was also affected by this issue.) Failure to perform TLS certificate verification before sending HTTP headers (private Midori bug, Banshee). This leaks secure cookies, usually allowing attackers full access to your user account on a website. It also leaks the page you’re visiting, which HTTPS is supposed to keep private. (Update: Regrettably, Epiphany prior to 3.14.0 was affected by this issue. Also, the WebKit 2 API in WebKitGTK+ prior to 2.6.6, CVE-2015-2330.)

Except where noted, the latest release of all of the applications listed above are still vulnerable at the time of this writing, even though almost all of these bugs were reported long ago. With the exception of Shotwell, nobody has fixed any of these issues. Perhaps nobody working on the project cares to fix it, or perhaps nobody working on the project has the time or expertise to fix it, or perhaps nobody is working on the project anymore at all. This is all common in free software.

In the case of Shotwell, the issue has been fixed in git, but it might never be released because nobody works on Shotwell anymore. I informed distributors of the Shotwell vulnerability three months ago via the GNOME distributor list, our official mechanism for communicating with distributions, and advised them to update to a git snapshot. Most distributions ignored it. This is completely typical; to my knowledge, the stable releases of all Linux distributions except Fedora are still vulnerable.

If you want to play the above game, it should be very easy for you to add to my list by checking only popular desktop software. A good place to start would be to check if Liferea or Xombrero (supposedly a security-focused browser) perform TLS certificate verification before sending HTTP headers, or if Banshee performs verification on subresources, on the principle that vulnerable applications probably have other related vulnerabilities. (I did not bother to check.)

On a related note, many applications use insecure dependencies. Tons of popular GTK+ applications are stuck on an old, deprecated version of WebKitGTK+, for example. Many popular KDE applications use QtWebKit, which is old and deprecated. These deprecated versions of WebKit suffer from well over 100 remote code execution vulnerabilities fixed upstream that will probably never be backported. (100 is a lowball estimate; I would be unsurprised if the real number for QtWebKit was much, much higher.)

I do not claim that proprietary software is generally more secure than free software, because that is absolutely not true. Proprietary software vendors, including big name corporations that you might think would know better, are still churning out consumer products based on QtWebKit, for example. (This is unethical, but most proprietary software vendors do not care about security.) Not that it matters too much, as proprietary software vendors rarely provide comprehensive security updates anyway. (If your Android phone still gets updates, guess what: they’re superficial.) A few prominent proprietary software vendors really do care about security and do good work to keep their users safe, but they are rare exceptions, not the rule.

It’s a shame we’re not able to do better with free software.