That is an extremely oddly specific cysec issue they’re choosing to target…
It’s one backed by a lot of data. One example is from the Android project.
The percent of vulnerabilities caused by memory safety issues continues to correlate closely with the development language that’s used for new code. Memory safety issues, which accounted for 76% of Android vulnerabilities in 2019, and are currently 24% in 2024, well below the 70% industry norm, and continuing to drop.
https://security.googleblog.com/2024/09/eliminating-memory-safety-vulnerabilities-Android.html
There’s an argument that critical infrastructure software vendors are already meeting standards for basic, non-memory related items. Yes, there are other categories, but memory safety is one that’s harder to verify. Moving to memory safe languages is an ensure a category of correctness. This excludes usage of unsafe escape hatches.
… Are the Feds aware that the core systems that many, many older companies (and government agencies) use are still based on COBOL?
Is… is that not of any concern?
Is COBOL subject to buffer overflows and use-after-free bugs? I honestly don’t know.
I don’t recall the COBOL code I’ve read using pointers.
The problem I am aware of is moreso that the number of programmers that know COBOL is vanishingly small, it … COBOL does not seem to really be taught anymore…
…so if something goes wrong at that level, you may be SOL if you cannot find an increasingly rare programmer that knows COBOL well.
That sounds like policy written by somebody who has no idea what the reality of software development is.
1 year to rewrite critical software in a new language?
Did you read the article at all?
“Putting all new code aside, fortunately, neither this document nor the U.S. government is calling for an immediate migration from C/C++ to Rust — as but one example,” he said. “CISA’s Secure by Design document recognizes that software maintainers simply cannot migrate their code bases en masse like that.”
Companies have until January 1, 2026, to create memory safety roadmaps.
All they are asking for by that date is a roadmap for dealing with memory safety issues, not rewrite everything.
Feds have found a way to hack rust /s?
DARPA has unironically been funding a tool that purports to translate C / C++ into Rust…
