Future versions of Google Chrome may run slower in order to help safeguard user security, the team behind the web browser has revealed.
Quoting earlier research that revealed that 70% of all security issues in Chrome concern memory safety bugs, the developers listed the various approaches it could take to improve the security of the browser, including imposing a slight performance penalty on future versions if this helps make it more secure.
Chrome security
In broad terms, compile-time checks, runtime checks, and using a memory safe language, are the three approaches that the developers reason could help make Chrome more secure
The developers list MiraclePtr as one of the solutions that will play a significant role in future Chrome security initiatives.
Although the solution involves earmarking a portion of memory, which is a precious resource on a mobile device, the solution could help eliminate over half of the use-after-free bugs in the browser, according to the developers.
Rust for safety
At the same time, the team is continuing to look at how it can use a memory safe language, such as Rust, for parts of Chrome in the future.
The search giant has some experience using Rust for this purpose as its Android security team is experimenting using the language in the mobile operating system’s low-level system-code to reign in the number of Android memory-based security vulnerabilities.