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Can Legacy Systems Transition Away from C/C++?
- Critical software must move away from memory-unsafe languages like C and C++ by January 2026 or face significant security risks, says US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and FBI.
- Approximately 70% of security vulnerabilities in software systems arise from manual memory management required in languages like C and C++ which leads to critical security flaws that attackers exploit to take control over systems.
- By January 2026, companies must either have a clear memory-safety roadmap or transition to memory-safe alternatives for new product lines meant for critical infrastructure or national functions.
- The White House had suggested the same, saying experts have identified a few programming languages like C and C++ over which organisations should transition if possible.
- C and C++ power many legacy systems and microcontrollers that have been in existence for decades. It is difficult, expensive and prohibitive to transition to a new language and rewrite existing code.
- The issue of interoperability is also a concern among developers as C is the bridge between languages, and many languages have a CFFI, making it easy to communicate with each other.
- Developers believe that C++ provides extreme performance, less than 1ms response times, very low server footprint, and accomplishing features otherwise dismissed as “not possible at scale”.
- There are very few languages that replace C/C++ as they are without runtime. Rust and Zig are memory-safe languages that do not need runtimes.
- Legacy systems remain in use because they generate revenue for businesses that rely on them and IT companies that maintain them through expensive support contracts.
- Linux is being integrated into the Linux kernel as a second language. This way, companies can slowly move away from languages like C and utilise modern-day languages like Rust while not completely abandoning them.
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