The White House Office of the National Cybersecurity Director (ONCD) has urged technology companies to move to memory-safe programming languages, such as Rust, to improve software security by reducing the number of memory security vulnerabilities.
See also: How to upgrade RAM?
Such vulnerabilities are programming errors or weaknesses within software that can lead to memory management issues when memory is accessed, written, allocated, or deallocated.
These occur when software accesses memory in unwanted or unsafe ways, resulting in various security risks and problems such as buffer, use after free memory, use of uninitialized memory that attackers can exploit.
Successful exploitation poses serious risks, potentially allowing attackers to gain unauthorized access to data or execute malicious code with the privileges of the system owner.
“ For over 35 years, this same class of vulnerability has plagued the digital ecosystem. The challenge of eliminating entire classes of software vulnerabilities is an urgent and complex problem. Looking to the future, new approaches must be pursued to reduce this risk ,” the ONCD report states
“The highest maximization method for reducing memory vulnerabilities is to secure one of the cornerstones of cyberspace: the programming language. Using memory-safe programming languages can eliminate most memory safety bugs.“
See also: Computer RAM gets the biggest upgrade in 25 years
Today's report builds on the National Cybersecurity Strategy signed by President Biden in March 2023, which shifted the burden of protecting the cyberspace to software vendors and service providers.
The National Security Council (NSA) also published guidance in November 2022 on how developers prevent software memory issues.
A similar report from CISA and international partners in December 2023 called for a shift to memory-safe programming languages to reduce the attack surface of software products by eliminating memory-related vulnerabilities.
As Microsoft discovered years ago, up to 70% of security vulnerabilities found in software developed using languages that lack memory safety are due to memory safety concerns. This remains true even after detailed code reviews and additional preventive and detection measures, the company further stated.
However, Google shows that using a memory-safe programming language can significantly reduce the number of memory safety vulnerabilities even in large code bases and, in some cases, eliminate them altogether.
See also: ChatGPT: Tests long-term memory in chat
How can you protect yourself from various forms of cyber attacks?
In addition to memory-safe programming languages, to protect yourself from various forms of cyberattacks, you should first and foremost keep software and operating system up to date. It is also important to use a reliable antivirus program. These programs provide protection against various forms of cyberattacks, including viruses, trojans, and ransomware. Using strong passwords is another key strategy for protecting yourself from cyberattacks. Finally, information security training can be particularly helpful.
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Source: bleepingcomputer
