Security of C++ Applications: Protecting Code from Vulnerabilities and Attacks

In the modern world, where cyberattacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated, software security is paramount. The C++ language, despite its power and performance, places a huge responsibility on the developer for memory and resource management. The book "C++ Application Security" is a practical guide that will help you transform your code from potentially vulnerable to reliable and protected.

What is this book about?

This is not another theoretical textbook. The author, Dmitry Voronov, immerses the reader in the real world of vulnerability exploitation and methods of protection against them. You will learn:

• How hackers attack C++ applications: A detailed breakdown of classic and modern attacks: buffer overflow (stack/buffer overflow), heap corruption, use-after-free, integer overflow, and virtual table (vtable) attacks.
• Code-level protection methods: Using smart pointers, RAII (Resource Acquisition Is Initialization), STL containers, and modern C++11/14/17/20 features for automatic memory management and leak prevention.
• Secure design: Principles of least privilege, secure input handling, combating race conditions and deadlocks in multithreaded applications.
• Analysis tools: Configuration and use of static analyzers (Clang Static Analyzer, PVS-Studio), dynamic analyzers (Valgrind, AddressSanitizer, UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer), and fuzz testing (libFuzzer, AFL).
• Cryptography in C++: Practical examples of working with OpenSSL, protecting data at rest and in transit, password hashing, and secure key storage.

Who is this book for?

The book will be useful for a wide range of professionals:

• C++ developers (from Junior to Senior) who want to write higher quality and more secure code.
• Software architects making decisions about system security at the design stage.
• Information security specialists wanting to understand the inner workings of vulnerabilities in low-level languages.
• Technical students studying system programming and security.

What will you learn by reading the book?

After studying the material, you will be able to:

• Identify and fix critically dangerous vulnerabilities in existing code.
• Design new modules with security requirements in mind "from scratch."
• Configure CI/CD pipelines with automated code security checks.
• Confidently use modern C++ standards to write secure code.
• Understand security analyzer reports and quickly respond to findings.

The book contains many practical examples, ready-made code snippets, and audit checklists. It is a desktop guide you will return to again and again.