diff --git a/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Core and Builtins/2020-07-23-19-13-03.bpo-41340.en20DT.rst b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Core and Builtins/2020-07-23-19-13-03.bpo-41340.en20DT.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000000..dbc3d3400b9b0d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Core and Builtins/2020-07-23-19-13-03.bpo-41340.en20DT.rst	
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Optimized strdup
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/Python/strdup.c b/Python/strdup.c
index 6ce171b21fe6c4..c39c9ea1a15dce 100644
--- a/Python/strdup.c
+++ b/Python/strdup.c
@@ -4,9 +4,10 @@ char *
 strdup(const char *str)
 {
     if (str != NULL) {
-        char *copy = malloc(strlen(str) + 1);
+        size_t len = strlen(str) + 1;
+        char *copy = malloc(len);
         if (copy != NULL)
-            return strcpy(copy, str);
+            return memcpy(copy, str, len);
     }
     return NULL;
 }