Safer with Google: Advancing Memory Safety (Google Online Security Blog)
Posted by Alex Rebert, Security Foundations, and Chandler Carruth, Jen Engel, Andy Qin, Core Developers Error-prone interactions between software and memory1 are widely understood to create safety issues in software. It is estimated that about 70% of severe vulnerabilities2 in memory-unsafe codebases are due to memory safety bugs. Malicious actors exploit these vulnerabilities and continue to create real-world harm. In 2023, Google’s threat intelligence teams conducted an industry-wide study and observed a close to all-time high number of vulnerabilities exploited in the wild. Our internal analysis estimates that 75% of CVEs used in zero-day exploits are memory safety vulnerabilities. At Google, we have been mindful of these issues for over two decades, and are on a journey to continue advancing the state of memory safety in the software we consume…