Google recently announced on its official blog that it has awarded a $1 million research grant to the Rust Foundation.
This funding will be used to finance the Interop Initiative project, which aims to improve the security of Rust code and its interoperability with the C++ language.
Google’s goal is to improve the stability of programs that use Android as their OS.
Memory bug issues
The C++ language is used in a large number of fields, including infrastructure, systems, and gaming, due to its speed and versatility. Last year, it was ranked number one by Tiobe, a popularity ranking of programming languages.
However, C++ is criticized for its security vulnerabilities due to memory bugs that cannot be structurally fixed.
According to Google, 70% of critical Android security vulnerabilities are caused by memory bugs of this type. However, since C++ represents a significant part of the application and implements key functionalities, it is difficult to do without it.
“Improving memory security is one of the biggest technology challenges”
Over the years, however, Google has gradually adopted programming languages that address memory vulnerabilities, such as Rust.
“With Rust, we want to prevent many vulnerabilities from impacting the Android ecosystem, based on historical vulnerability density statistics,” said Dave Klydermach, vice president of engineering, security and of Android Privacy at Google, “This investment aims to expand the adoption of Rust across the different components of the platform”.
“Improving memory security in the software industry is one of the biggest technology challenges, and we call on the community and the industry as a whole to work together to protect the open source ecosystem,” he said. said Lars Verström, Director of Android Platform Tools and Chairman of the Rust Foundation Board.
Source: “ZDNet Korea”