In June 2025 the NSA and CISA released a cybersecurity information sheet stressing the need to move to memory safe languages to reduce vulnerabilities in modern software development. This wasn't the first and only advisory note and it seriously undermined the image of C++ and its use in developing critical applications which maintain national security or for that matter any critical system.
Memory safety is a key consideration while building systems impacting national security and C++ has always been grappling with memory safety.
The C++ core guidelines when enforced and static analysis when done can only mitigate risks to a certain extent but can't close the gap provided by protections built into memory safe languages. Safety profiles are attempting to close this gap by aspiring to provide memory safety in C++.
Safety profiles are expected to become a part of the C++ standard with work in progress and will play a role in determining whether C++ stays relevant in the face of competition from memory safe languages.
Other approaches to achieve memory safety were considered by WG21.
In this talk the speaker will describe the concept of Safety profiles which is expected to stabilize in C++ 29 and also do a deep dive into the proposed implementation while also highlighting the costs and tradeoffs involved while building national security systems and cybersecurity software using C++ without Safety profiles.
Prabhu Missier has built safety critical real time applications in the Avionics, Automotive Electronics, Data management and Network Security domains using C++ while at Honeywell, IBM, BAE and other places. These days he works in the Defense sector. He also runs a Software Development studio and apart from tinkering with Android and Arduino he loves trekking in Australia where he lives.