The White House Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) has released a report calling on the technical community to proactively reduce the attack surface in cyberspace by adopting memory safe programming languages and focusing on software measurability. The report discusses the need for a policy shift to offload the responsibility of cybersecurity from individuals and small businesses to larger organizations and highlights past cyberattacks that have been caused by memory safety vulnerabilities.
Main Points
Adopt memory safe programming languages
The report, titled ‘Back to the Building Blocks: A Path Toward Secure and Measurable Software’, calls for the adoption of memory safe programming languages to combat cybersecurity threats.
Develop better diagnostics for cybersecurity
The White House ONCD is pushing for the development of better diagnostics to measure cybersecurity quality through software measurability.
Shift cybersecurity responsibility
The report suggests a policy shift to place the burden of cybersecurity on larger organizations, aligning with the President’s National Cybersecurity Strategy.
Insights
The White House Office of the National Cyber Director calls on the technical community to adopt memory safe programming languages to reduce cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
ONCD makes the case that technology manufacturers can prevent entire classes of vulnerabilities from entering the digital ecosystem by adopting memory safe programming languages.
A new report highlights the importance of software measurability for developing diagnostics to measure cybersecurity quality.
ONCD is also encouraging the research community to address the problem of software measurability to enable the development of better diagnostics that measure cybersecurity quality.
The report details plans for a shift in cybersecurity responsibility to larger organizations.
The report takes an important step toward shifting the responsibility of cybersecurity away from individuals and small businesses and onto large organizations like technology companies and the Federal Government.
Links
- Read the full report here
- Read out statements of support from industry, academia, and civil society here
- Watch a video address from Director Coker and Assistant National Cyber Director for Technology Security Rajan outlining the challenges and solutions presented in the technical report here
URL
https://www.whitehouse.gov/oncd/briefing-room/2024/02/26/press-release-technical-report/