Just like any commonly-utilized program, stability vulnerabilities are regularly learned (and later patched) in Android all the time. Fortunately, 1 variety of security trouble is on the decline, thanks to a swap in programming languages.
Google posted a blog write-up on its protection blog site this 7 days, describing that memory protection vulnerabilities — where buffer overflows and other identical issues in code can permit other program to split out of sandboxes and trigger difficulties — are on the drop in Android telephones. The firm mentioned, “we see that the selection of memory safety vulnerabilities have dropped considerably in excess of the past couple of decades/releases. From 2019 to 2022 the once-a-year range of memory security vulnerabilities dropped from 223 down to 85.”
So, why the drop in protection difficulties? Google was swift to be aware that “correlation does not necessarily signify causation,” but the possible offender is the determination to create a lot of Android’s newer code in the Rust programming language, alternatively than more mature languages like C or C++. Rust enforces memory safety, drastically minimizing the chance of safety difficulties related to memory.
Google exposed in the blog site put up, “From 2019 to 2022 it has dropped from 76% down to 35% of Android’s total vulnerabilities. 2022 is the very first yr exactly where memory protection vulnerabilities do not stand for a greater part of Android’s vulnerabilities.” Rust is nonetheless not most of the new code included just about every 12 months, but it the percentage of Rust code is step by step rising. Google also famous that, so much, zero stability problems have been found in Android’s Rust code.
There are continue to a lot of other probable safety difficulties outside the house of memory safety difficulties, but it would seem like Android phones and tablets are safer due to the fact of the transition to Rust. That’s absolutely well worth celebrating.
Source: Google Protection Blog
