Heartbleed Bug: What Can You Do?
Summary: The Heartbleed bug is a vulnerability in a component of recent versions of OpenSSL, which a large share of the Internet's websites rely on to secure traffic, passwords, and other sensitive data. A tool released around the time the flaw became public let anyone force vulnerable servers to dump the most recent chunk of processed data, which could include usernames, passwords, re-usable browser cookies, or administrator credentials, and attackers have replayed the attack repeatedly to compile large lists of stolen credentials.
What's compelling: The exploit dumps only small chunks per run, but nothing stops an attacker from replaying it over and over, and Krebs reports seeing firsthand data of attackers compiling huge credential lists from sites that stayed vulnerable. Krebs also notes a likely second wave against Internet hardware and third-party security products such as commercial firewall and VPN tools, and warns that phishers will exploit the publicity with emailed password-reset invitations.
Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗
- Topics
- Vulnerabilities & Patching
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