Security Does Not Like Complexity
Software in general is very complicated, and the more functionality that we try to shove into applications and operating systems, the more complex software will become. The more complex software gets, the harder it is to properly predict how it will react in all possible scenarios, and it becomes much harder to secure.
Today’s operating systems and applications are increasing in lines of code (LOC). Windows Vista has 50 million lines of code, and Windows XP has approximately 40 million LOC; Netscape, 17 million LOC; and Windows 2000, around 29 million LOC. Unix and Linux operating systems have many fewer, usually around 2 million LOC. A common estimate used in the industry is that 5–50 bugs exist per 1,000 lines ...
Get Gray Hat Hacking, Second Edition, 2nd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
