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HeartBleed Bug Explained - 10 Most Frequently Asked Questions

HeartBleed Bug Explained - 10 Most Frequently Asked Questions

Apr 15, 2014
Heartbleed – I think now it's not a new name for you, as every informational website, Media and Security researchers are talking about probably the biggest Internet vulnerability in recent history. It is a critical bug in the OpenSSL's implementation of the TLS/DTLS heartbeat extension that allows attackers to read portions of the affected server's memory, potentially revealing users data, that the server did not intend to reveal. After the story broke online, websites around the world flooded with the heartbleed articles, explaining how it works, how to protect, and exactly what it is. Yet many didn't get it right. So based on the queries of Internet users, we answered some frequently asked questions about the bug. 1.) IS HEARTBLEED A VIRUS? Absolutely NO, It's not a virus. As described in our previous article , The Heartbleed bug is a vulnerability resided in TLS heartbeat mechanism built into certain versions of the popular open source encryption standard Open
Billions of Smartphone Users affected by Heartbleed Vulnerability

Billions of Smartphone Users affected by Heartbleed Vulnerability

Apr 13, 2014
Heartbleed has left a worst impression worldwide affecting millions of websites and is also supposed to put millions of Smartphones and tablets users at a great risk. Heartbleed is a critical bug ( CVE-2014-0160 ) in the popular OpenSSL cryptographic software library, that actually resides in the OpenSSL's implementation of the TLS/DTLS heartbeat extension, which allows attackers to read portions of the affected server's memory, potentially revealing users data such as usernames, passwords, and credit card numbers, that the server did not intend to reveal. OpenSSL is a widely-used cryptographic library which implements the SSL and TLS protocol and protects communications on the Internet, and mostly every websites use either SSL or TLS, even the Apache web server that powers almost half of the websites over internet utilizes OpenSSL. But to assume that the users using desktop browsers to visit websites are vulnerable to the Heartbleed bug, will be wrong. Despite 40
Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

Mar 21, 2024Operational Technology / SCADA Security
When you read reports about cyber-attacks affecting operational technology (OT), it's easy to get caught up in the hype and assume every single one is sophisticated. But are OT environments all over the world really besieged by a constant barrage of complex cyber-attacks? Answering that would require breaking down the different types of OT cyber-attacks and then looking back on all the historical attacks to see how those types compare.  The Types of OT Cyber-Attacks Over the past few decades, there has been a growing awareness of the need for improved cybersecurity practices in IT's lesser-known counterpart, OT. In fact, the lines of what constitutes a cyber-attack on OT have never been well defined, and if anything, they have further blurred over time. Therefore, we'd like to begin this post with a discussion around the ways in which cyber-attacks can either target or just simply impact OT, and why it might be important for us to make the distinction going forward. Figure 1 The Pu
NSA denies Report that Agency knew and exploited Heartbleed Vulnerability

NSA denies Report that Agency knew and exploited Heartbleed Vulnerability

Apr 12, 2014
The Bloomberg claimed that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) knew about the most critical Heartbleed flaw and has been using it on a regular basis to gather " critical intelligence " and sensitive information for at least past two years and decided to keep the bug secret, citing two sources ' familiar with the matter '. In response to the above report, NSA has issued a ' 94 character' statement today denying the claims that it has known about the Heartbleed bug since two years and that it has been using it silently for the purpose of surveillance. " NSA was not aware of the recently identified Heartbleed vulnerability until it was made public ," the U.S. intelligence agency said on its Twitter feed . Heartbleed is one of the biggest Internet vulnerabilities in recent history that left large number of cryptographic keys and private data such as usernames, passwords, and credit card numbers, from the most important sites and services on the Int
cyber security

Automated remediation solutions are crucial for security

websiteWing SecurityShadow IT / SaaS Security
Especially when it comes to securing employees' SaaS usage, don't settle for a longer to-do list. Auto-remediation is key to achieving SaaS security.
German Developer responsible for HeartBleed Bug in OpenSSL

German Developer responsible for HeartBleed Bug in OpenSSL

Apr 12, 2014
We have already read so many articles on Heartbleed, one of the biggest iNternet threat that recently came across by a team of security engineers at Codenomicon , while improving the SafeGuard feature in Codenomicon's Defensics security testing tools.  The story has taken every media attention across the World, as the bug opened doors for the cyber criminals to extract sensitive data from the server's memory and almost every major site have been affected by it. UNINTENTIONAL  BIRTH OF HEARTBLEED More than two years ago, German programmer Robin Seggelmann introduced a new feature called " Heartbeat " in the most secured open source encryption protocol, OpenSSL , which is used by several social networks, search engines, banks and other websites to enable secure connections while transmitting data. But introducing heartbeat feature cost him dearly, as here the most critical bug resides. Dr. Seggelmann allegedly was just trying to improve OpenSSL and wo
How to Protect yourself from the 'Heartbleed' Bug

How to Protect yourself from the 'Heartbleed' Bug

Apr 10, 2014
Millions of websites, users' passwords, credit card numbers and other personal information may be at risk as a result of the Heartbleed security flaw , a vulnerability in widely used cryptographic library ' OpenSSL '. [ READ DETAILS HERE ] Netcraft survey says that about half a million widely trusted active websites on the internet are vulnerable to the heartbleed bug, which means the information transmitting through hundreds of thousands of websites could be vulnerable, despite the protection offered by encryption techniques. According to Netcraft, " the heartbeat extension was enabled on 17.5% of SSL sites, accounting for around half a million certificates issued by trusted certificate authorities. These certificates are consequently vulnerable to being spoofed (through private key disclosure), allowing an attacker to impersonate the affected websites without raising any browser warnings. " Among the trusted names running OpenSSL is Yahoo!, which has been
How Heartbleed Bug Exposes Your Passwords to Hackers

How Heartbleed Bug Exposes Your Passwords to Hackers

Apr 10, 2014
Are you safe from the critical bug Heartbleed?? OpenSSL- the encryption technology used by millions of websites to encrypt the communication and is also used to protect our sensitive data such as e-mails, passwords or banking information.  But a tiny, but most critical flaw called " Heartbleed " in the widely used OpenSSL opened doors for the cyber criminals to extract sensitive data from the system memory. WHAT IS HEARTBLEED? SSL and TLS are known to provide communication security and privacy over the Internet for applications such as websites, email, instant messaging (IM), including some virtual private networks (VPNs). Heartbleed is a critical bug ( CVE-2014-0160 ) is in the popular OpenSSL cryptographic software library, that actually resides in the OpenSSL's implementation of the TLS (transport layer security protocols) and DTLS ( Datagram TLS ) heartbeat extension (RFC6520). This bug was independently discovered by a team of security enginee
Heartbleed - OpenSSL Zero-day Bug leaves Millions of websites Vulnerable

Heartbleed - OpenSSL Zero-day Bug leaves Millions of websites Vulnerable

Apr 08, 2014
It is advised to those who are running their web server with OpenSSL 1.0.1 through 1.0, then it is significantly important that you update to OpenSSL 1.0.1g immediately or as soon as possible.  As this afternoon, an extremely critical programming flaw in the OpenSSL has been discovered that apparently exposed the cryptographic keys and private data from some of the most important sites and services on the Internet. The bug was independently discovered by security firm Codenomicon along with a Google Security engineer. The flaw is in the popular OpenSSL cryptographic software library and its weakness allows cyber criminals to steal the information protected, under normal conditions, by the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) or TLS (Transport Security Layer) encryption used to secure the Internet. OpenSSL is an open-source implementation of the SSL and TLS protocols. The core library implements the basic cryptographic functions that enable SSL and TLS encryption. Mostly every w
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