A new analysis of Linux kernel security reveals a startling reality: the average high-severity vulnerability lies dormant in the codebase for over two years before discovery.
While the mean lifespan of these bugs sits around 25 months, the data includes extreme outliers where specific flaws remained hidden for up to 20 years. This deep “dark debt” suggests that legacy codebases often harbor undetectable, complex logic errors that bypass modern static analysis tools.
The findings challenge the industry’s reliance on rapid patching, suggesting that true security requires a shift toward architectural resilience and memory-safe languages like Rust, rather than just faster bug fixes.
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