Heartbleed
Heartbleed is a security bug in the OpenSSL cryptography library, which is a widely used implementation of the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols. Here are the key details:
Discovery and Announcement
- Discovered on March 14, 2014, by a team of security engineers from Codenomicon and Google Security.
- Publicly disclosed on April 7, 2014.
The Vulnerability
- Heartbleed was a flaw in the implementation of the TLS heartbeat extension (RFC 6520).
- It allowed attackers to read memory from the server or client systems, potentially revealing private keys, passwords, and other sensitive information.
- The bug was caused by missing bounds checking in the handling of the TLS heartbeat, allowing a client to request more data than was actually sent in the heartbeat message.
Impact
- Affected OpenSSL versions 1.0.1 through 1.0.1f (inclusive).
- Over 66% of all web servers using OpenSSL were vulnerable, including major services like Yahoo, Amazon Web Services, Netflix, and numerous others.
- The potential for data leakage was significant because the bug allowed for reading up to 64KB of memory at a time, which could be repeated to extract more data.
Response
- OpenSSL released version 1.0.1g on April 7, 2014, fixing the bug.
- Many organizations had to revoke and reissue SSL certificates, update their software, and notify users to change their passwords.
- The security community recommended that all certificates issued before April 7, 2014, be considered compromised.
Notable Incidents
- The Canadian Revenue Agency confirmed that personal information was compromised due to Heartbleed.
- Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm, reported that they observed attempts to exploit Heartbleed in the wild before it was publicly known.
Legacy
- Heartbleed highlighted the importance of security audits for widely used open-source libraries.
- It led to an increased focus on funding and support for open-source security projects.
- The bug prompted discussions on the security of internet infrastructure and the need for rapid response protocols for vulnerabilities.
External Links
Related Topics