Ada and malicious software

["Björn Persson" <spam-away@nowhere.nil>]

Tom wrote:

> One question that I would like an answer for is:
> Is Ada less susceptible to computer virii than C++ and Java on the
> Windows XP operating system?  Now that is a question that would come
> up more often where I work.

If you mean true viruses then I can't see that there would be any 
difference. The choice of programming language doesn't affect a 
program's ability to modify the code of another program. (On the other 
hand, choice of operating system does.)

If you mean malicious code in general, then yes, Ada programs would be 
less subjected to worms, cracking tools and other things that exploit 
security holes. Security holes are often buffer overflows, and as 
Jean-Pierre Rosen said, Ada programs do not have buffer overflows. 
Arithmetic overflows also occur, and Ada protects well against those too.

-- 
Björn Persson                              PGP key A88682FD
                    omb jor ers @sv ge.
                    r o.b n.p son eri nu