Solidity developers are migrating to Rust for Solana. Rust developers are entering Web3 for the first time. Both languages have fundamental security properties that shape the vulnerabilities you'll encounter. Rust's ownership model prevents entire classes of bugs — but introduces new attack surfaces unfamiliar to Solidity developers. Here's how they compare.
Memory Safety
Rust: Memory safety enforced at compile time through ownership, borrowing, and lifetimes. No null pointers, no buffer overflows, no use-after-free. This eliminates an entire class of vulnerabilities common in C/C++.
Solidity: Managed memory via the EVM. No direct memory corruption possible, but storage layout bugs (especially in proxies) can corrupt state similarly.
Integer Overflow
Solidity 0.8+: Built-in overflow protection. Wraps silently in unchecked blocks.
Rust: Panics on overflow in debug mode, wraps silently in release mode. Since Solana programs compile in release mode, you must use checked_add(), checked_mul(), etc.
// Rust: DANGEROUS in release mode
let total = amount_a + amount_b; // Wraps silently!
// Rust: SAFE
let total = amount_a.checked_add(amount_b)
.ok_or(ProgramError::ArithmeticOverflow)?;Access Control
Solidity: Modifiers (onlyOwner, OpenZeppelin AccessControl) are a first-class pattern. The biggest risk is forgetting to add them.
Rust/Solana: Account validation is the #1 vulnerability category. Every account passed to an instruction must be verified (owner, signer, address). Anchor's account validation structs help but aren't foolproof.
Reentrancy
Solidity: Major attack vector. External calls can re-enter the calling contract.
Rust/Solana: Solana's runtime prevents reentrancy by design — a program can't be called by itself within the same instruction unless it explicitly CPIs. However, cross-program invocation (CPI) can still create unexpected behavior.
Unique Rust/Solana Vulnerabilities
- Missing account owner checks — the #1 Solana vulnerability
- PDA seed manipulation — predictable seeds without proper validation
- CPI authority escalation — passing signer seeds to wrong programs
- Account closing bugs — not zeroing data or draining lamports properly
- Type confusion — deserializing an account as the wrong type
Unique Solidity Vulnerabilities
- Reentrancy — the eternal #1
- Storage collision in proxies — no Rust equivalent
- ERC-20 non-standard behavior — token compatibility nightmare
- tx.origin phishing — specific to Ethereum's transaction model
- Selfdestruct/delegatecall quirks — EVM-specific
The Verdict
Rust is a more secure language by default, but Solana's account model introduces unique attack surfaces. Solidity has more known vulnerability patterns but also more mature tooling and audit best practices. Neither is "safe" without a security audit.
Building on Solana or Ethereum? Submit your contracts for audit — we review both Solidity and Rust programs.