Heartbleed Bug - Your Passwords are in Danger!

The Heartbleed Bug is a serious vulnerability in the popular OpenSSL cryptographic software library. This weakness allows stealing the information protected, under normal conditions, by the SSL/TLS encryption used to secure the Internet. SSL/TLS provides communication security and privacy over the Internet for applications such as web, email, instant messaging (IM) and some virtual private networks (VPNs).

The Heartbleed bug allows anyone on the Internet to read the memory of the systems protected by the vulnerable versions of the OpenSSL software. 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. This allows attackers to eavesdrop on communications, steal data directly from the services and users and to impersonate services and users.

Who discovered it?

It was discovered independently by a security company called Codenomicon and a Google researcher named Neel Mehta.

What leaks in practice?

Codenomicon have tested some of their own services from attacker's perspective. They attacked themselves from outside, without leaving a trace. Without using any privileged information or credentials they were able to steal from themselves the secret keys used for their X.509 certificates, user names and passwords, instant messages, emails and business critical documents and communication.

Why does it matter?

OpenSSL is used by an estimated two-thirds of the servers currently on the internet, and those known to be affected include most of Yahoo’s web properties, the dating site OKCupid and the image-sharing service Imgur, which handles a lot of the image-sharing on sites like Reddit (Yahoo said late Tuesday that it had patched most of the servers for its core websites). The weakness could allow a hacker to pilfer personal information about users of those sites, including login details, passwords and other important data. The Guardian says the bug means “servers vulnerable to Heartbleed are less secure than they would be if they simply had no encryption at all.”

How to stop the leak?

As long as the vulnerable version of OpenSSL is in use it can be abused. Fixed OpenSSL has been released and now it has to be deployed. Operating system vendors and distribution, appliance vendors, independent software vendors have to adopt the fix and notify their users. Service providers and users have to install the fix as it becomes available for the operating systems, networked appliances and software they use.

List of vulnerable websites..

https://github.com/musalbas/heartbleed-masstest/blob/master/top1000.txt

You can get complete information at http://heartbleed.com/

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