It is likely that some of these issues were discovered by automated tools. For example, it is possible to use the Google fuzzing framework to discover memory safety bugs in a software, as long as the program has been debugged to a certain level of completeness.
According to the search engine, over 64,000 lines of code were inspected to find a total of 85 potential issues.
While it is too early to tell how many of these issues could have been exploited, it is clear that the search engine ’ s automated testing methods uncovered a large amount of potential memory corruption issues in Firefox.
This is not the first time that such a high number of memory safety issues have been found in a piece of software. For example, in March 2019, over 6.5 million lines of code were inspected by the same automated testing tools to find nearly 23,000 potential issues in Windows 10.
How Did The Mozilla Find Potential Memory Safety Issues?
The automated testing methods used by the search engine are a very effective way of discovering memory safety bugs in software. As has been noted by other programmers, writing software is akin to playing chess at high speed without the benefit of being able to see the opponent's moves. It takes time, skill, and experience to win this game.
There are many tools available that can help programmers with this process. The Google fuzzing framework is one such tool that can assist with finding memory safety bugs in software.
Timeline
Published on: 12/22/2022 20:15:00 UTC
Last modified on: 01/04/2023 17:09:00 UTC