What is Heartbleed and why you should be aware of it

The Heartbleed bug is an encryption defect that broke out, making many websites vulnerable to tremendous security threats on the World Wide Web. Websites like Yahoo, NASA, and Airbnb, just to name a few, have been affected. This means that if you have logged into these sites anytime during the past two years, your personal information could have been leaked. Your credit card information, passwords, and personal data from these sites could have been up for grabs for cyber-bandits to commandeer.

This bug was discovered by a member of Google’s security team and software company Codenomicon. There’s nothing we can personally do since it is solely the Internet companies’ obligation to rectify this problem.

The network software OpenSSL is an open-source library program that is used for encrypting online services. Websites that have “https” URLs account for 56% of all websites. The “s” in “https” that stands for secure, is no longer fully protected. Anyone could view the servers' memory of running OpenSSL.The Heartbleed website stated that “this compromises the secret keys used to identify the service providers and to encrypt the traffic, the names and passwords of the users and the actual content.” Hackers would have had a field day with all of the information that they could have stolen. They could have taken all of the information they wanted without leaving any e-footprints. Fortunately, the researchers found the loophole in the system way before any hackers did.

Password security company LastPass created a Heartbleed Checker where you can enter any website’s URL to check its susceptibility. What you can do to further protect yourself is to change the passwords to your vital accounts. Check out the list of affected websites here.

Facebook and Twitter, who both use OpenSSL web servers, have yet to announce if they were, in fact, vulnerable to Heartbleed.

Story via Mashable, Heartbleed