01
01
02
@/contents/about.mdx
03
04
05
06
07
· 6 min read · 4 views
With 48,185 CVEs published in 2025 and exploit timelines shrinking to hours, the case for memory-safe languages like Rust has never been clearer. Google's Android team just proved it with a 1000x reduction in vulnerability density. Here's what it means for developers like us.
I've been watching the security landscape for years, mostly from the sidelines—patching dependencies, running npm audit, and hoping for the best. But the numbers from 2025 made me sit up straight. 48,185 CVEs. In one year. That's 132 new vulnerabilities every single day.
And here's the kicker: 28% of exploits now happen within 24 hours of disclosure.
We don't have time to be slow anymore.
Let me break down what we're looking at. Three major reports dropped recently, and together they paint a picture that's both terrifying and... oddly hopeful?
According to Deepstrike's 2025 analysis:
| Metric | Number |
|---|---|
| CVEs in H1 2025 | 21,500+ |
| Daily average | ~133 new vulnerabilities |
| High/Critical severity | 38% |
| Year-end projection | ~50,000 CVEs |
| Exploited within 24 hours | 28% |
The Linux kernel alone had ~2,879 CVEs. The WordPress ecosystem? Over 6,700 vulnerabilities—and 90% of those came from plugins, not WordPress itself.
That last stat hits different when you remember how many client projects I've built on WordPress. All those "trusted" plugins we install without thinking? They're the attack surface now.
Here's something that genuinely frustrates me: over 8,000 CVEs in 2025 were cross-site scripting vulnerabilities. XSS. In 2025. A vulnerability class we've known how to prevent for decades.
The Stack's analysis points to the real culprit—WordPress plugins and legacy code built without security oversight during development. We're still shipping the same bugs our predecessors shipped in 2005, just faster and at scale.
But here's where it gets interesting.
While the CVE numbers keep climbing, Google's Android team quietly published something remarkable: a 1000x reduction in memory safety vulnerability density when comparing Rust to C/C++.
Let that sink in. Not 10x. Not 100x. A thousand times fewer vulnerabilities per million lines of code.
| Language | Vulnerabilities per MLOC |
|---|---|
| C/C++ | ~1,000 |
| Rust | ~0.2 |
And this isn't theoretical—Android now runs about 5 million lines of Rust in production. The platform has expanded Rust into the Linux kernel (Android 6.12 ships the first production Rust driver), firmware, and even apps like Chromium's parsers and MLS messaging protocols.
Here's what really caught my attention. We've always assumed that safety comes at the cost of speed—you can ship fast or ship secure, pick one.
Google's DORA metrics say otherwise:
The safer path is now also the faster one. That's not a tradeoff anymore—it's just better.
Google almost shipped their first Rust memory safety vulnerability—a buffer overflow in CrabbyAVIF. The bug made it through code review, testing, everything.
But it never became exploitable. Why? The Scudo hardened memory allocator caught it before it could cause damage.
This is what layered security looks like in practice. Rust catches most issues at compile time. When something slips through, hardened allocators provide the safety net. It's not about being perfect—it's about building systems that fail safely.
I know what you're thinking: "Cool story about Rust, but I'm shipping Next.js apps, not kernel drivers."
Fair point. But here's the thing—the patterns Google discovered apply everywhere:
WebAssembly is bringing Rust to the browser. Node.js is getting more Rust-based tooling every day (hello, SWC, Biome, and the entire Vite ecosystem). The line between "systems programming" and "web development" is blurring.
I've already written about how I prefer Rust-based tools like Biome over their JavaScript equivalents. Speed matters, but so does reliability. Tools that can't crash are tools I trust.
With 28% of exploits happening within 24 hours, dependabot isn't optional—it's critical infrastructure. That weekly dependency review you keep postponing? It's a security liability.
My current approach:
WordPress plugins being the attack surface isn't unique to PHP. Every package you install from npm is a trust decision. Every bun add is accepting code from strangers.
I've started being more intentional about dependencies:
One line from The Stack's analysis keeps nagging at me: LLMs are speeding up exploit development using publicly available patch information.
When a CVE drops with a fix, attackers can now use AI to reverse-engineer the vulnerability from the patch diff. The window between "patch available" and "exploit in the wild" is collapsing.
This changes the game. We can't rely on "patch eventually" anymore. It has to be "patch immediately" or accept the risk.
After digesting all this, here's my updated security posture:
2025's security landscape is a tale of two trends: vulnerability counts are exploding, but we finally have proof that memory-safe languages can make a 1000x difference. The tools are getting better. The path forward is clear.
The question is whether we'll adopt these practices before or after we get burned.
Google didn't wait for a catastrophic Android vulnerability to invest in Rust. They saw the trend lines and made a choice. We have the same information now. What are we going to do with it?
My take: start treating security as a developer experience problem. Safer tools should also be faster tools. Security reviews should be part of shipping, not a blocker to it. And memory-safe languages aren't just for systems programmers anymore—they're becoming the foundation we all build on.
The numbers don't lie. The 1000x improvement is real. The exploit windows are shrinking. The only question is whether we adapt fast enough.
What's your security posture look like these days? I'd love to hear how other teams are handling the patch-or-die reality of modern vulnerabilities. Drop a comment below!