Rust Vulnerability Analysis and Maturity Challenges

While the memory safety and security features of the Rust programming language can be effective in many situations,  Rust’s compiler is very particular on what constitutes good software  design practices. Whenever design assumptions disagree with real-world  data and assumptions, there is the possibility of security  vulnerabilities–and malicious software that can take advantage of those  vulnerabilities. In this post, we will focus on users of Rust programs,  rather than Rust developers. We will explore some tools for  understanding vulnerabilities whether the original source code is  available or not. These tools are important for understanding malicious  software where source code is often unavailable, as well as commenting  on possible directions in which tools and automated code analysis can  improve. We also comment on the maturity of the Rust software ecosystem  as a whole and how that might impact future security responses,  including via the coordinated vulnerability disclosure methods advocated by the SEI’s CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC). This  post is the second in a series exploring the Rust programming language. The first post explored security issues with Rust.