C/C++ Is Where Vulnerability Programs Go to Guess

Walk into most AppSec reviews, and you’ll find a familiar pattern. Python dependencies: fully inventoried. npm packages: tracked and patched. C and C++ code powering the operating system, the embedded firmware, or the performance-critical core of the product? A blank space where the risk assessment should be.

This is not a tooling gap that’s easy to paper over. C and C++ do have package managers, but adoption is still ramping, and they are dependent on the operating system and build environment. Libraries get vendored directly into repositories. Static linking buries third-party components inside compiled binaries with no labels and often no version information left to read. Build logic lives across Conan, CMake files, Bazel configs, Makefiles, Yocto recipes, and BitBake layers, and no two projects use the same way.