Building Safety by Design: CHERI in Critical Systems Development

Paul Butcher, the Secure Avioincs by Design Project Manager for AdaCore, discusses the usage of CHERI in safety-critical software.

AdaCore’s 2024; Highlights from our 30th year in Business

As AdaCore celebrates the start of a new year in business, we reflect on 2024, a year of development and future-proofing combined with consolidating our position as the trusted experts in high-integrity software tools.

Announcing Advent of Ada 2024: Coding for a Cause!

We're thrilled to kick off the holiday season with the third edition of Advent of Ada, a programming challenge that not only tests your coding skills but also contributes to a meaningful cause.As many of you know, Advent of Code has become a beloved tradition since its inception in 2015. The concept is simple yet brilliant: from December 1st to 25th, every day a new small programming exercise is published on the adventofcode.com website. Participants get points for each completed exercise.

AdaCore Join Rust Enthusiasts in Paris

On June 25th, I attended the Rust Paris 2024 conference. Among around one hundred Rust enthusiasts and a program filled with captivating subjects and contributors, I presented (together with Thales) our vision for establishing a Rust ecosystem for certifiable embedded critical systems.

The use of Ada Language in the Telecommunications Industry

In this article, Fabien Chouteau explains the importance of secure software in the emerging telecommunications industry.

AdaCore for SCHEME — Safety-Critical Harsh Environment Micro-processing Evolution

AdaCore is excited to announce its participation in the SCHEME (Safety-Critical Harsh Environment Micro-processing Evolution) research project. Within SCHEME, Rolls-Royce has assembled a world-class consortium of UK industry and academia to deliver the next generation of high-integrity processing platforms for use in aerospace and other harsh environments.

BACK TO THE BUILDING BLOCKS: AdaCore’s Contributions to Secure and Measurable Software

The focus on enhancing cybersecurity through various technological approaches and methodologies, as detailed in the White House Office of the National Cyber Director’s (ONCD) document titled “Back to the Building Blocks: A Path Toward Secure and Measurable Software" underscores a pivotal shift in how organizations, especially those at the helm of technological innovation, must adapt and respond to the ever-evolving landscape of cyber threats. This document provides an overview of some strategies and technologies that are critical in bolstering cybersecurity defenses.

Ada/SPARK Crate Of The Year 2023 Winners Announced!

In 2023 we announced the third edition of the Ada/SPARK Crate Of The Year Awards. We see the Alire source package manager as a game changer for Ada/SPARK, so we want to use the Crate of the Year awards to honor the people contributing to the ecosystem. This edition was different from the previous ones: we decided to depart from a submissions-based approach and instead consider all crates available in the Alire ecosystem. Today we are pleased to announce the results.

Announcing Updates to learn.adacore.com

Some time ago, we announced some updates to the learn website. In the meantime, we published the Introduction To Embedded Systems Programming course and the initial parts of the Advanced Journey with Ada course. Today, we'd like to announce some updates that have been made to the learn website since then.

Explainable Program Proofs

Ever wanted to understand why program proof is not as easy as telling ChatGPT "can you prove that program <code>stuff</code> is correct for me?" A new book from top-notch programmer and program proof expert Rustan Leino answers all your questions. Or at least a good batch.

Automated Assurance through Differential Fuzzing

This blog describes the concept and benefits of differential fuzz testing. In addition, the post describes setting up, executing and analyzing the results of a differential fuzzing campaign for the Libkeccak and XKCP cryptographic libraries.

Tis the Season to be Giving falalalala lalalala

Every year since 2015, a team of dedicated individuals led by Eric Wastl organizes an online programming challenge called: Advent of Code. The concept is simple yet brilliant: from December 1st to 25th, every day a new small programming exercise is published on the adventofcode.com website. This year we want to join the fun, and bring a little bit of extra motivation for a good cause.

Join us at the High Integrity Software (HIS) Conference 2022!

After two years of virtual events, we are very happy to report that the High Integrity Software Conference (HIS) will be making a physical comeback on Tuesday 11th October 2022 at the Bristol Marriott Hotel City Centre, Bristol, UK. Since 2014, AdaCore has been co-organising the event with Capgemini Engineering (previously known as Altran Technologies, SA). The success and growth of the conference have ensured it remains a regular fixture for returning delegates, and the exciting lineup for this year's event will ensure HIS 2022 is no exception!

Announcing The 2022 Ada/SPARK Crate Of The Year Award

We're happy to announce our the second edition of our programming competition, the Ada/SPARK Crate Of The Year Award! We believe the Alire package manager is a game changer for Ada/SPARK, so we want to use this competition to reward the people contributing to the ecosystem.

Announcing Updates to learn.adacore.com

AdaCore and Ferrous Systems Joining Forces to Support Rust

For over 25 years, AdaCore has been committed to supporting the needs of safety- and mission-critical industries. This started with an emphasis on the Ada programming language and its toolchain, and over the years has been extended to many other technologies. AdaCore’s product offerings today include support for the Ada language and its formally verifiable SPARK subset, C and C++, and Simulink and Stateflow models. We have accomplished this while addressing the requirements of various safety standards such as DO-178B/C, EN 50128, ECSS-E-ST-40C / ECSS-Q-ST-80C, IEC 61508 and ISO 26262.

AdaCore at FOSDEM 2022

Like previous years, AdaCore will participate in FOSDEM. Once again the event will be online only, but this won’t prevent us from celebrating Open Source software and it is an opportunity for even more people to participate around the world.

When the RISC-V ISA is the Weakest Link

NVIDIA has been using SPARK for some time now to develop safety- and security-critical firmware applications. At the recent DEF CON 29, hackers Zabrocki and Matrosov presented how they went about attacking NVIDIA firmware written in SPARK but ended up attacking the RISC-V ISA instead!Zabrocki starts by explaining the context for their red teaming exercise at NVIDIA, followed by a description of SPARK and their evaluation of the language from a security attack perspective. He shows how they used an extension of Ghidra to decompile the binary code generated by GNAT and describes the vulnerability they identified in the RISC-V ISA thanks to that decompilation. Matrosov goes on to explain how they glitched the NVIDIA chip to exploit this vulnerability. Finally, Zabrocki talks about projects used to harden RISC-V platforms.

Celebrating Women Engineering Heroes - International Women in Engineering Day 2021

Women make up roughly 38% of the global workforce, yet they constitute only 10–20% of the engineering workforce. In the U.S., numbers suggest that 40% of women who graduate with engineering degrees never enter the profession or eventually leave it. Why? The reasons vary but primarily involve socio-economic constraints on women in general, workplace inequities, and lack of support for work-life balance. Sadly, history itself has often failed to properly acknowledge the instrumental contributions of women inventors, scientists, and mathematicians who have helped solve some of our world's toughest challenges. How can young women emulate their successes if they don't even know about them?

AdaCore at FOSDEM 2021

Like previous years, AdaCore will participate in FOSDEM. This time the event will be online only, but this won’t prevent us from celebrating Open Source software. AdaCore engineers will give two talks in the Safety and Open Source devroom, a topic at the heart of AdaCore since its inception.