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Microsoft: 70 percent of all security bugs are memory safety issues

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Re: Microsoft: 70 percent of all security bugs are memory safety issues

#81

Post by EvanAnderson »

m0zg wrote: post #60
Someone1234 wrote: post #4

Just a painful reminder that they scrapped Midori[0] their managed Operating System based on Microsoft Research's Singularity project[1]. Even if it only replaced Windows LTSB/Embedded, I'd still prefer an ATM, checkout, or gas station terminal I was using was running on managed code. Doubly so for the next generation of Nuclear Powered submarines[3]. Plus between virtualisation and silo-ed software management ("Apps…

Midori, as cool as it was, was Microsoft's "no output division" (see https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/DEC/dec.b... for context). It existed so that very senior engineers wouldn't go elsewhere and cause trouble for Microsoft. It had fullfilled its purpose in that regard. I strongly suspect that some of Google's more ambitious endeavors serve the same purpose.

I hadn't seen that memory before. Turn out there's some previous discussion re: "No Output Division": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10587124

Re: Microsoft: 70 percent of all security bugs are memory safety issues

#82

Post by pcwalton »

Thaxll wrote: post #50
skyde wrote: post #2

we should all be using Rust then :)

Right because Rust will prevent all the issues of Unsafe usage that an OS uses all the time ...

How many of those unsafe patterns could be written in safe code? (The answer: nearly all of them.)

So what if Rust doesn't prevent all conceivable memory safety issues anyone could possibly write? It's a huge improvement.

Re: Microsoft: 70 percent of all security bugs are memory safety issues

#83

Post by sanxiyn »

ilovecaching wrote: post #75

Rust couldn't solve all of these bugs, but it certainly would have drastically reduced the total amount. The code would also be drastically easier to write and debug. C++17 is still a total mess to write, despite what Microsoft might tell you in their docs. Really doesn't make sense to me, outside of the sunk cost fallacy, why Microsoft isn't pivoting to Rust if they want to write C++.

Microsoft is using Rust for greenfield projects: https://github.com/Azure/iotedge

Re: Microsoft: 70 percent of all security bugs are memory safety issues

#84

Post by ilovecaching »

sumitgt wrote: post #77
ilovecaching wrote: post #75

Rust couldn't solve all of these bugs, but it certainly would have drastically reduced the total amount. The code would also be drastically easier to write and debug. C++17 is still a total mess to write, despite what Microsoft might tell you in their docs. Really doesn't make sense to me, outside of the sunk cost fallacy, why Microsoft isn't pivoting to Rust if they want to write C++.

Microsoft probably has tons of internal libraries that are modified and shared between many different teams spanning multiple orgs. I think a pivot like this is an incredibly complicated thing for a company like Microsoft to perform. It requires multiple years of planning from the ground up to port internal libraries and tooling, train engineers on Rust best practices. Not to mention the tricky business of going arou…

I would imagine that we would at least hear about Microsoft doing some new projects in Rust, or at least using it in some capacity to understand the cost/benefits better. I'm sure the first step would be increasing C++ interop.

Re: Microsoft: 70 percent of all security bugs are memory safety issues

#85

Post by sanxiyn »

ilovecaching wrote: post #84
sumitgt wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft probably has tons of internal libraries that are modified and shared between many different teams spanning multiple orgs. I think a pivot like this is an incredibly complicated thing for a company like Microsoft to perform. It requires multiple years of planning from the ground up to port internal libraries and tooling, train engineers on Rust best practices. Not to mention the tricky business of going arou…

I would imagine that we would at least hear about Microsoft doing some new projects in Rust, or at least using it in some capacity to understand the cost/benefits better. I'm sure the first step would be increasing C++ interop.

> I would imagine that we would at least hear about Microsoft doing some new projects in Rust

We did.

Re: Microsoft: 70 percent of all security bugs are memory safety issues

#86

Post by ilovecaching »

coldcat wrote: post #79
ilovecaching wrote: post #75

Rust couldn't solve all of these bugs, but it certainly would have drastically reduced the total amount. The code would also be drastically easier to write and debug. C++17 is still a total mess to write, despite what Microsoft might tell you in their docs. Really doesn't make sense to me, outside of the sunk cost fallacy, why Microsoft isn't pivoting to Rust if they want to write C++.

you could ask the same question for every os. And none choose Rust even the recent like fushia. BTW go ask Linus to switch to Rust I'm waiting for you there.

Fuchsia is using Rust for some pieces. That's what I assume MS would do. MS is a company with tons of products, not just an OS, and certainly not a single monolith. You wouldn't rewrite everything in a day, you would slowly move things over time.

Re: Microsoft: 70 percent of all security bugs are memory safety issues

#89

Post by DenisM »

It's a pity Modula-2 did not gain wider adoption 30 years ago - it has almost all the memory safety of managed languages and none of the performance penalties. Array bounds were checked by compiler and the only available unsafe operation was deallocate, all other unsafe operations were sequestered into separate module which could be easily isolated, audited, and/or banned as appropriate. Life could have been so much better.

Re: Microsoft: 70 percent of all security bugs are memory safety issues

#90

Post by sanxiyn »

coldcat wrote: post #79
ilovecaching wrote: post #75

Rust couldn't solve all of these bugs, but it certainly would have drastically reduced the total amount. The code would also be drastically easier to write and debug. C++17 is still a total mess to write, despite what Microsoft might tell you in their docs. Really doesn't make sense to me, outside of the sunk cost fallacy, why Microsoft isn't pivoting to Rust if they want to write C++.

you could ask the same question for every os. And none choose Rust even the recent like fushia. BTW go ask Linus to switch to Rust I'm waiting for you there.

Fuchsia implements TCP/IP stack in Go. It is an improvement over others.
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