Security News > 2023 > April > Microsoft is busy rewriting core Windows code in memory-safe Rust

Microsoft is rewriting core Windows libraries in the Rust programming language, and the more memory-safe code is already reaching developers.

Microsoft showed interest in Rust several years ago as a way to catch and squash memory safety bugs before the code lands in the hands of users; these kinds of bugs were at the hear of about 70 percent of the CVE-listed security vulnerabilities patched by the Windows maker in its own products since 2006.

The Rust renovation of Windows began in 2020 with DWriteCore, the Windows App SDK implementation of Windows' DWrite engine for text analysis, layout, and rendering.

The Microsoft Windows graphics device interface is being ported to Rust and so far has 36,000 lines of Rust code.

The latest version of Windows 11 boots with the Rust version, which passes all GDI tests, but the Rust port is currently disabled behind a feature-flag.

Samuel Colvin, founder of Pydantic and a developer using Python and Rust, told The Register "I'm impressed by Microsoft being this forward thinking, but not very surprised. I'm sure they're under pressure from their engineers to adopt Rust. If you're building an application today that's either performance critical or low-level, then Rust is a no-brainer at that point."

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/04/27/microsoft_windows_rust/