Heartbleed

Posted: April 11, 2014

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Ranking:	3,056
Threat Level:	1/10
Infected PCs:	8,701

First Seen:	April 11, 2014
Last Seen:	October 17, 2023
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

Heartbleed vulnerability Heartbleed is a software vulnerability affecting websites using the OpenSSL data protection standards. In theory, the exploitation of this bug allows third parties to access passwords and other sensitive information for the users of affected websites, the latter of which encompass roughly two-thirds of all widely-used Internet domains. Heartbleed was recently identified but has had a previous lifespan of two years. PC users should take proper actions to protect vulnerable or hacked accounts, and malware experts also encourage making use of appropriate utilities for verifying any suspected vulnerabilities to Heartbleed with particular websites.

When the Heart of Security Starts Bleeding Your Passwords

Heartbleed is a vulnerability that recently was made public by researchers at Codenomicon, and is a particularly astounding PC threat for the sheer breadth of websites affected by Heartbleed. Although there are no confirmed Heartbleed attacks so far, some news outlets speculate that the American NSA has exploited Heartbleed deliberately to engage in surveillance, and this possibility is awaiting confirmation from reliable intelligence sources. In theory, Heartbleed may be exploited with any website that's used OpenSSL encryption standards – which right on happens to be the most outstanding form of SSL encryption to date. Vulnerable targets include Amazon Web Services, the Facebook social networking site, Google's Gmail and even Cisco-brand Internet routers.

By number of targets alone, Heartbleed may very well be considered the most significant software vulnerability found in the history of the Internet. Along with that, Heartbleed also is significant for leaving no obvious signs of the exploitation, which makes it almost impossible to estimate the number of affected victims or isolate potential exploit-abusing actions. The Heartbleed bug seemingly was introduced by accident by Robin Seggelmann in 2012 and affects 1.0.1 and the 1.0.2-beta of OpenSSL.

Malware experts have noted that most major companies already have issued patches to correct Heartbleed. If Heartbleed is left unpatched, Heartbleed tricks the aforementioned websites and software into giving ill-minded people information about their traffic, possibly including account passwords, user names and other, equally classified forms of information. However, malware experts warn that you should not change all passwords indiscriminately and immediately, since such wide-sweeping actions may encourage third parties to take advantage of the increase in sensitive data transmission and increase the likelihood of Heartbleed's exploitation.

Getting the Internet Back to a Healthy Heart

Although it may be tempting to panic at how prolific Heartbleed is, PC users who monitor their accounts for suspicious activities already should be able to catch obvious attacks against their personal accounts using Heartbleed. Besides hoping that companies will update their own software promptly to stop any future abuses of this bug, PC users also can protect themselves from Heartbleed through methods including:

Installing browser-specific add-ons that detect Heartbleed vulnerabilities on various websites. Chromebleed for Google's Chrome is one such add-on and warns you automatically whenever you visit a site that's still vulnerable to Heartbleed.
Using Heartbleed-detecting websites, such as Filippo Valsorda's filippo.io/Heartbleed/, AKA the 'Heartbleed test.' These sites function similarly to threat domain scanners, but detect Heartbleed vulnerabilities, as opposed to other PC threats.
Changing your passwords for specific websites that recommend that their users do so as part of an overall security overhaul.

Happily, most banking websites and US government websites appear to be unaffected by Heartbleed. On the other end, malware researchers are unhappy to note that over three hundred cloud storage companies so far have eschewed installing updates that would disable the Heartbleed bug, which places cloud storage users particularly at risk.

Technical Details

Additional Information

The following URL's were detected:

cranchit.comfeed.cranchit.com/?q