Google Builds an Impenetrable Rust Wall to Secure Pixel 10 Against Zero-Day Attacks

Rust has been the talk of the town lately, with many claiming it to be one of the best low-level programming languages in existence. It has broken into the Linux kernel already and is starting to break into parts of our smartphones too. Now, Google has started using Rust to secure Pixel 10 models against Zero-Day attacks.

Pixel 10 Modem will Now Be Harder to Crack Into

Spotted first by ArsTechnica, Google is now using an open-source hickory-proto library written in Rust to safeguard the DNS parser on the Pixel 10 series. This means that instead of rewriting the legacy C/C++ code to protect the modem from attacks, Google's engineers stripped out the standard library dependencies from the Rust code and compiled it directly to machine code for maximum speed.

As for what this means, Google has implemented a much safer modem implementation starting with the Pixel 10. The new architecture ensures that any efforts by a bad actor to trigger a zero-day vulnerability will fail to pass through the impenetrable Rust Wall. It's like putting a high-tech security gate on the front door.

To simplify this further, if a hacker tries to send a malicious DNS packet to a Pixel 10, it hits the Rust code. Because Rust is mathematically designed to be memory-safe, the attack bounces off. This way, users' phones remain more secure without Google having to replace the legacy code.

Google Pixel 10 in Indigo Colourway from the back — Image Credit: Beebom Gadgets

Looking ahead, Google views this as the first step toward integrating more memory-safe Rust components to further strengthen Android security. While the addition of the Rust library adds a 371 KB overhead to the code, which is slightly large, the brand says that modularising could set the benchmark to allow other platforms to adopt similar security improvements in the future.

With the Google I/O 2026 announcement, we should hear more about this Rust implementation during the developer keynote, which is scheduled after the Android keynote. More information about the rollout should also be revealed soon, so stay tuned.