Developers can now use the Rust programming language when creating applications on Azure Sphere platform for internet-connected devices.

Programmers can apply the performance and security capabilities within Rust to make software for Internet of Things devices and other embedded systems that can be the target of botnets and other malware.

Want to try a null-pointer dereference? Not gonna happen! For embedded systems this is a lifeline…

“Rust and Azure Sphere are a good match – a programming language that can improve safety of code with strict compile time safety checks alongside Azure Sphere’s secure identity, update, and end-to-end encrypted communication services for internet-connected devices should provide greater security to the customer applications,” Akshatha Udayashankar, an embedded software engineer at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post this week.

The move by Microsoft – which previewed the idea in June 2022 – comes the same week Google said it will support third-party Rust libraries in its open-source Chronium project. Like Microsoft, Google touted the security features in the programming language.

As our sister site DevClass wrote at the time, the attraction is not just safety. “Other factors include a greater likelihood of correctness, as a side-effect of safety guarantees, and more reliable concurrency. Rust’s ‘rich type system’ assists in writing expressive code.”

Azure Sphere already includes built-in security features for internet-connected devices and comprises hardware built atop chips from MediaTek and a Linux-based operating system. In addition, it includes the cloud-based Azure Sphere Security Services (AS3) that creates a secure connection between the devices and the internet or cloud.

AS3 ensures a secure boot, device identity authentication, the trust of the software, and certification the devices are running trusted code. It also enables Microsoft to securely download updates to…