Microsoft pushes safer software construction as AI makes offense cheap

Microsoft Corp. corporate vice president of AI security David Weston said at Black Hat USA 2026 that AI is making offensive capabilities cheap and abundant, ending the era of scarce vulnerabilities, and urged security teams to invest AI-driven productivity gains into safer software construction, memory-safe languages like Rust, and formal verification. Weston cited Google's results showing memory-safety vulnerabilities fell from about 75% in 2019 to below 20% by 2025, with no new memory-safety issues across 5 million lines of code in safer languages.

Microsoft pushes safer software construction as AI makes offense cheap AI is ending the era of scarce vulnerabilities, making powerful offensive capabilities abundant and forcing cybersecurity teams to move beyond reactive patching toward fundamentally safer software construction. That reality was the core of a Black Hat USA https://siliconangle.com/2026/07/30/cybersecurity-black-hat-usa-thecube-blackhat/ keynote by David Weston pictured , corporate vice president of AI security at Microsoft Corp., titled “The End of Rare: Defending When Offense Is Cheap.” Weston explained that traditional defenses have long rested on the economics of scarcity—expensive zero-days, strong security boundaries and the assumption that those walls would hold. “We’ve baked this in,” Weston said. “We said we’re safe because this is rare and it costs a lot. Unfortunately, AI’s changed this. It’s no longer rare.” Weston spoke with Krista Case https://www.linkedin.com/in/krista-case/ at Black Hat USA https://www.thecube.net/events/informa-tech/black-hat-usa-2026 , during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed why security teams must invest AI-driven productivity gains into safer software construction, memory-safe languages and formal verification rather than trying to outpace attackers with faster patches. Disclosure below. Changing the physics of safer software construction Simply accelerating patches is still a reactive strategy that leaves attackers a window, Weston noted. Attackers benefit from asymmetry—they only have to be right once—and from agility, since they face none of the compliance or process constraints that slow defenders. “What AI is doing is making everyone more productive, particularly engineers,” Weston said. “Let’s invest that productivity in changing the physics.” That means prioritizing safety by construction, memory-safe languages such as Rust https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/verifying-rust-cryptography-in-symcrypt-from-standards-to-code/ , and formal methods that turn program logic into mathematical representations that can be proven free of certain failure classes. Google’s results with Rust illustrate the potential. Roughly 75% of its vulnerabilities in 2019 were memory-safety issues. By 2025 that share had fallen below 20%, and across 5 million new lines of code written in safer languages, the company reported not a single new memory-safety issue. “You’re seeing two of the most important software libraries on the planet having good experiences here and using agents to get there,” Weston said. “This is my call to action: everyone has to start experimenting with this in your codebase.” Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Black Hat USA 2026 https://www.thecube.net/events/informa-tech/black-hat-usa-2026 : Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Black Hat USA. Sponsors of theCUBE’s event coverage do not have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE. Photo: SiliconANGLE A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE: Support our mission to keep content open and free by engaging with theCUBE community. 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