C-to-Rust Fallacy: Automatic Refactoring != Memory Security

2026-09-22

AI Summary

研究评估了多种C-to-Rust自动重构工具在转换含有内存安全漏洞的C程序时的有效性，发现这些工具生成的Rust代码存在编译失败、继承原C程序的安全问题及引入新漏洞等问题。

Abstract

Rust has emerged as the leading system programming language, offering strong memory and type safety guarantees without compromising performance. This positions it as a compelling alternative to traditional languages like C and C++, which are susceptible to memory security bugs. However, manually transforming C to Rust requires in-depth domain knowledge of the Rust language features, which requires significant effort for developers. To address this, tools for automatic C-to-Rust refactoring aim to generate safe Rust code leveraging static analysis and Large Language Models (LLMs). While these tools claim to achieve safety by reducing the unsafe Rust, the correlation with improving security is not clear. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive empirical study on the reliability, safety, and correctness of various C-to-Rust refactoring methods. Specifically, we evaluate C2Rust-analyze, CROWN, C2SaferRust, and FLOURINE using a dataset of 116 C programs with memory security bugs from the NIST Juliet Test Suite. Based on 464 Rust programs generated by these tools, our evaluation focuses on three key aspects: the compilation correctness of the refactored programs, the effectiveness in mitigating original C bugs, and the tendency to introduce additional Rust bugs. The results indicate that 342 Rust programs fail to compile, 177 Rust programs inherit memory security bugs from the original C programs, and 77 new Rust bugs are introduced. We examine the rationale behind tool design and analyze the root cause of errors across various refactoring methods. Our findings indicate that current automated refactoring tools deliver memory safety as they define it, but not the broader memory security when adopting them.

Problem

• C-to-Rust
• memory security
• automatic refactoring
• static analysis
• Large Language Models

Innovation

• Automatic Refactoring
• Memory Security
• Empirical Study
• C-to-Rust