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Security agencies of US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand urges industry to migrate away from memory-unsafe langauges to safe ones (such as Rust)

https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2023-12/The-Case-for-Memory-Safe-Roadmaps-508c.pdf

From the conclusion:

The authoring agencies urge executives of software manufacturers to prioritize using MSLs [memory-safe languages] in their products and to demonstrate that commitment by writing and publishing memory safe roadmaps. The authoring agencies encourage software manufacturers to lead from the top by publicly naming a business executive who will personally drive the elimination of memory safety vulnerabilities from the product line.

7 comments

CameronDev

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They are absolutely right, but will be interesting to see the reaction from the tinfoil hat lot.

sxan

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I am immediately suspicious of anything the NSA recommeds. I'll buy extra tin foil if I have to, but this is also the agency encouraging organizations to use cryptography that they have backdoors into. They are not your friends, and anything with their name on it deserves skepticism.

The last thing I want is the NSA recommending my software. It's cause for minor panic and a thorough review.

Reacher

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That's reverse psychology. They know everyone will lose trust in Rust and go back to memory unsafe languages so they can hack our software again.

put my tin foil hat aside -

neurogenesis

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That's exactly what they think you're thinking about what they think you thought they were thinking, I wouldn't fall for it

rmuk

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Found the NSA agent. Don't trust what they tell you to not trust when you're not trusting. That's what they want you to want.

Reacher

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That's true. So I use Rust but I don't use Rust.

technom

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You might want to have a relook at your own statement here. It's got a load of paranoia. Paranoia beyond common sense and realistic threat assessment is unhealthy.

As for the NSA, it's like they have a split personality (which I think is true for anyone in their position). Their job isn't all about stealing information. They also have the mandate to secure their own and their allies' assets. After all, who knows what's more vulnerable to thievery than an experienced thief? Their job is as much to harden security as it is to compromise.

Finally, their statement is to move to a safe language - one of which is Rust. For your apprehensions about their backdoors to be true, they'd have to compromise every memory safe language out there - Rust, Go, Swift, Nim.... There's reason to be suspicious if they recommend only one language (that is more or less what happened with the NIST pseudorandom generator algorithm). But that isn't the case here.

And you need to assess statements on their own merit - not based on who says it. What they say is true even in our personal experiences. It's been shown statistically that people write much fewer bugs (memory safety bugs are a huge class) with safe languages. I'm not even confident of writing correct C programs these days. Honestly, if your paranoia is true, then it's easier for the NSA to recommend everyone to write in C or C++. That way people will write careless mistakes that they can exploit. And C/C++ usage is way more than for Rust or anything else. They'd target C/C++ compilers and standards to increase their impact.