“The world is built on C and C++” is no overstatement — C and C++ are foundational languages for our global society and are always in the world’s top 10 most heavily used languages now and for the foreseeable future. Visual Studio has always supported many programming languages and we encourage new languages and experiments; diversity and innovation are healthy and help progress the state of the art in software engineering. In Visual Studio we also remain heavily invested long-term in providing the best C and C++ tools and continuing to actively participate in ISO C++ standardization, because we know that our internal and external customers are relying on these languages for their success, now and for many years to come.
As cyberattacks and cybercrimes increase, we have to defend our software that is under attack. Malicious actors target many attack vectors, one of which is memory safety vulnerabilities. C and C++ do not guarantee memory safety by default, but you can build reliable and secure software in C++ using additional libraries and tools. And regardless of the programming languages your project uses, you need to know how to defend against the many other attack vectors besides memory safety that bad actors are using daily to attack software written in all languages.
To that end, we’ve just published a new document on Microsoft Learn to help our customers know and use the tools we provide in Visual Studio, Azure DevOps, and GitHub to ship reliable and secure software. Most of the advice applies to all languages, but this document has a specific focus on C and C++. It was coauthored by many subject-matter experts in programming languages and software security from across Microsoft:
This is a section-by-section companion to the United States government publication NISTIR 8397: Guidelines on Minimum Standards for Developer Verification of Software. NISTIR 8397 contains excellent guidance on how to build reliable and secure software in any programming language, arranged in 11 sections or topics. For each NISTIR 8397 section, this Learn document summarizes how to use Microsoft developer products for C++ and other languages to meet that section’s security needs, and provides guidance to get the most value in each area.
Most of NISTIR 8397’s guidance applies to all software; for example, all software should protect its secrets, use the latest versions of tools, do automated testing, use CI/CD, verify its bill of materials, and so on. But for C++ memory safety specifically, see our Learn document’s information in sections 2.3, 2.5, and 2.9 for a detailed list of analyses (e.g., CodeQL, Binskim, /analyze), safe libraries (e.g., GSL, SafeInt), hardening compiler switches (e.g., /sdl, /GS, /guard, /W4, /WX, /Qspectre), and tools (e.g., Address Sanitizer, LibFuzzer) that your project can and should use regularly to harden your C++ programs. If your project uses C++ and you find items listed that you’re not using yet, don’t wait — start adding them to your project today!
Safety and security are essential. We want to help all of our customers to know about and use the state-of-the-art tools we provide in Visual Studio, Azure DevOps, and GitHub for writing reliable and secure software in our device-and-cloud connected world. Please take some time to review the new Learn document today, and use it as a checklist to ensure that your project is taking full advantage of the best practices and tools available to write robust software in modern C++.
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