The Heartbleed bug is an encryption flaw, uncovered by researchers and experts from Google’s security team and a software security firm called Codenomicon. The bug affects web servers running Apache and Nginx software. Heartbleed Bug can exploit the hidden flaw to expose private information that users enter into websites, applications, web email and even instant messages.
According to internet security experts, this bug active for last two years at least, has the ability to slip malicious operators past the OpenSSL security layer and capture passwords as well as forge authentication cookies and obtain other private information. Nearly half the websites utilize this security layer for operations.
As this is a server related security issue, common users will be dependent on the service providers to apply the patches to close the vulnerability. Google’s Gmail and Yahoo Mail were found vulnerable to the bug but both the firms has proactively implemented the patch for the issue.
How to Protect Yourself from the Heartbleed Bug?
- Check if the sites you browse are listed at Heartbleed Checker, security firm LastPass has set up this tool which lets you enter the URL of any website to check its vulnerability to the bug.
- Check for announcement from service that you normally use regarding a security update if there is none make them aware of the issue and demand clarification, after all it’s your data on the line.
- Change your passwords for all of you important accounts — email, banking and social media log ins — on sites that were affected by Heartbleed but first ensure that they have not only patched the problem but also revoked all of the past security certificates.
- Be very alert with your sensitive online accounts, especially banking and email, for any unauthorized activity for the next week or two.
Here is a table of popular sites that have either been affected or unaffected by the HeartBleed Bug as provided on Mashable.com.
Social Networks:
| Was it affected? | Is there a patch? | Do you need to change your password? | What did they say? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unclear | Yes | Yes | “We added protections for Facebook’s implementation of OpenSSL before this issue was publicly disclosed. We haven’t detected any signs of suspicious account activity, but we encourage people to … set up a unique password.” | |
| Yes | Yes | Yes | “Our security teams worked quickly on a fix and we have no evidence of any accounts being harmed. But because this event impacted many services across the web, we recommend you update your password on Instagram and other sites, particularly if you use the same password on multiple sites.” | |
| No | No | No | “We didn’t use the offending implementation of OpenSSL in www.linkedin.com or www.slideshare.net. As a result, HeartBleed does not present a risk to these web properties.” | |
| Yes | Yes | Yes | “We fixed the issue on Pinterest.com, and didn’t find any evidence of mischief. To be extra careful, we e-mailed Pinners who may have been impacted, and encouraged them to change their passwords.” | |
| Tumblr | Yes | Yes | Yes | “We have no evidence of any breach and, like most networks, our team took immediate action to fix the issue.” |
| No | Yes | Unclear | Twitter wrote that OpenSSL “is widely used across the internet and at Twitter. We were able to determine that servers were not affected by this vulnerability. We are continuing to monitor the situation.” While reiterating that they were unaffected, Twitter told Mashable that they did apply a patch. |
Other Companies
| Was it affected? | Is there a patch? | Do you need to change your password? | What did they say? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple | No | No | No | “iOS and OS X never incorporated the vulnerable software and key web-based services were not affected.” |
| Amazon | No | No | No | “Amazon.com is not affected.” |
| Yes | Yes | Yes* | “We have assessed the SSL vulnerability and applied patches to key Google services.” Search, Gmail, YouTube, Wallet, Play, Apps and App Engine were affected; Google Chrome and Chrome OS were not.*Google said users do not need to change their passwords, but because of the previous vulnerability, better safe than sorry. | |
| Microsoft | No | No | No | Microsoft services were not running OpenSSL, according to LastPass. |
| Yahoo | Yes | Yes | Yes | “As soon as we became aware of the issue, we began working to fix it… and we are working to implement the fix across the rest of our sites right now.” Yahoo Homepage, Yahoo Search, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Food, Yahoo Tech, Flickr and Tumblr were patched. More patches to come, Yahoo says. |
| Was it affected? | Is there a patch? | Do you need to change your password? | What did they say? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AOL | No | No | No | AOL told Mashable it was not running the vulnerable version of the software. |
| Gmail | Yes | Yes | Yes* | “We have assessed the SSL vulnerability and applied patches to key Google services.”*Google said users do not need to change their passwords, but because of the previous vulnerability, better safe than sorry. |
| Hotmail / Outlook | No | No | No | Microsoft services were not running OpenSSL, according to LastPass. |
| Yahoo Mail | Yes | Yes | Yes | “As soon as we became aware of the issue, we began working to fix it… and we are working to implement the fix across the rest of our sites right now.” |
Stores and Commerce
| Was it affected? | Is there a patch? | Do you need to change your password? | What did they say? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon | No | No | No | “Amazon.com is not affected.” |
| Amazon Web Services (for website operators) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Most services were unaffected or Amazon was already able to apply mitigations (see advisory note here). Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon EC2, Amazon Linux AMI, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu, AWS OpsWorks, AWS Elastic Beanstalk and Amazon CloudFront were patched. |
| eBay | No | No | No | “eBay.com was never vulnerable to this bug because we were never running a vulnerable version of OpenSSL.” |
| Etsy | Yes* | Yes | Yes | Etsy said that only a small part of its infrastructure was vulnerable, and they have patched it. |
| GoDaddy | Yes | Yes | Yes | “We’ve been updating GoDaddy services that use the affected OpenSSL version.” Full Statement |
| Groupon | No | No | No | “Groupon.com does not utilize a version of the OpenSSL library that is susceptible to the Heartbleed bug.” |
| Nordstrom | No | No | No | “Nordstrom websites do not use OpenSSL encryption.” |
| PayPal | No | No | No | “Your PayPal account details were not exposed in the past and remain secure.” Full Statement |
| Target | No | No | No | “[We] launched a comprehensive review of all external facing aspects of Target.com… and do not currently believe that any external-facing aspects of our sites are impacted by the OpenSSL vulnerability.” |
| Walmart | No | No | No | “We do not use that technology so we have not been impacted by this particular breach.” |
Banks and Brokerages
All the banks we contacted (see below) said they were unaffected by Heartbleed, but U.S. regulators have warned banks to patch their systems.
| Was it affected? | Is there a patch? | Do you need to change your password? | What did they say? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bank of America | No | No | No | “A majority of our platforms do NOT use OpenSSL, and the ones that do, we have confirmed no vulnerabilities.” |
| Capital One | No | No | No | “Capital One uses a version of encryption that is not vulnerable to Heartbleed.” |
| Chase | No | No | No | “These sites don’t use the encryption software that is vulnerable to the Heartbleed bug.” |
| Citigroup | No | No | No | Citigroup does not use Open SSL in “customer-facing retail banking and credit card sites and mobile apps” |
| E*Trade | No | No | No | E*Trade is still investigating. |
| Fidelity | No | No | No | “We have multiple layers of security in place to protect our customer sites and services.” |
| PNC | No | No | No | “We have tested our online and mobile banking systems and confirmed that they are not vulnerable to the Heartbleed bug.” |
| Schwab | No | No | No | “Efforts to date have not detected this vulnerability on Schwab.com or any of our online channels.” |
| Scottrade | No | No | No | “Scottrade does not use the affected version of OpenSSL on any of our client-facing platforms.” |
| TD Ameritrade | No | No | No | TD Ameritrade “doesn’t use the versions of open SSL that were vulnerable.” |
| TD Bank | No | No | No | “We’re currently taking precautions and steps to protect customer data from this threat and have no reason to believe any customer data has been compromised in the past.” |
| T. Rowe Price | No | No | No | “The T. Rowe Price websites are not vulnerable to the “Heartbleed” SSL bug nor were they vulnerable in the past.” |
| U.S. Bank | No | No | No | “We do not use OpenSSL for customer-facing, Internet banking channels, so U.S. Bank customer data is NOT at risk.” |
| Wells Fargo | No | No | No | No reason provided. |
Government and Taxes
| Was it affected? | Is there a patch? | Do you need to change your password? | What did they say? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1040.com | No | No | No | “We’re not vulnerable to the Heartbleed bug, as we do not use OpenSSL.” |
| FileYour Taxes.com | No | No | No | “We continuously patch our servers to keep them updated. However, the version we use was not affected by the issue, so no action was taken.” |
| H&R Block | Unclear | No | Unclear | “We are reviewing our systems and currently have found no risk to client data from this issue.” |
| Healthcare .gov | No | No | No | “Healthcare.gov consumer accounts are not affected by this vulnerability.” |
| Intuit (TurboTax) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Turbotax “has examined its systems and has secured TurboTax to protect against the “Heartbleed” bug.” Full Statement |
| IRS | Unclear | Unclear | Unclear | “The IRS continues to accept tax returns as normal … and systems continue operating and are not affected by this bug. We are not aware of any security vulnerabilities related to this situation.” |
| TaxACT | No | No | No | “Customers can update their passwords at any time, although we are not proactively advising them to do so at this time.” |
| USAA | Yes | Yes | Yes | USAA said that it has “already taken measures to help prevent a data breach and implemented a patch earlier this week.” |
Other
WordPress
Unclear
Unclear
Unclear
WordPress tweeted that it has taken “immediate steps” and “addressed the Heartbleed OpenSSL exploit,” but it’s unclear if the issue is completely solder. When someone asked Matt Mullenweg, WordPress’ founding developer, when the site’s SSL certificates will be replaced and when users will be able to reset passwords, he simply answered: “soon.”
| Was it affected? | Is there a patch? | Do you need to change your password? | What did they say? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Box | Yes | Yes | Yes | “We’re currently working with our customers to proactively reset passwords and are also reissuing new SSL certificates for added protection.” |
| Dropbox | Yes | Yes | Yes | On Twitter: “We’ve patched all of our user-facing services & will continue to work to make sure your stuff is always safe.” |
| Evernote | No | No | No | “Evernote’s service, Evernote apps, and Evernote websites … all use non-OpenSSL implementations of SSL/TLS to encrypt network communications.” Full Statement |
| Hulu | No | No | No | No comment provided |
| GitHub | Yes | Yes | Yes | GitHub said it has patched all its systems, deployed new SSL certificates and revoked old ones. GitHub is asking all users to change password, enable two-factor authentication and “revoke and recreate personal access and application tokens.” |
| IFTTT | Yes | Yes | Yes | IFTTT emailed all its users and logged them out, prompting them to change their password on the site. |
| Minecraft | Yes | Yes | Yes | “We were forced to temporary suspend all of our services. … The exploit has been fixed. We can not guarantee that your information wasn’t compromised.” More Information |
| Netflix | Unclear | Unclear | Unclear | “Like many companies, we took immediate action to assess the vulnerability and address it. We are not aware of any customer impact.” |
| OKCupid | Yes | Yes | Yes | “We, like most of the Internet, were stunned that such a serious bug has existed for so long and was so widespread.” |
| SoundCloud | Yes | Yes | Yes | SoundCloud emphasized that there were no indications of any foul play and that the company’s actions were simply precautionary. |
| Spark Networks (JDate, Christian Mingle) | No | No | No | Sites do not use OpenSSL. |
| SpiderOak | Yes | Yes | No | Spideroak said it patched its servers, but the desktop client doesn’t use a vulnerable version of OpenSSL, so “customers do not need to take any special action.” |
| Wunderlist | Yes | Yes | Yes | “You’ll have to simply log back into Wunderlist. We also strongly recommend that you reset your password for Wunderlist.” Full Statement |
Password Managers
| Was it affected? | Is there a patch? | Do you need to change your password? | What did they say? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1Password | No | No | No | 1Password said in a blog post that its technology “is not built upon SSL/TLS in general, and not upon OpenSSL in particular.” So users don’t need to change their master password. |
| Dashlane | Yes | Yes | No | Dashlane said in a blog post users’ accounts were not impacted and the master password is safe as it is never transmitted. The site does use OpenSSL when syncing data with its servers but Dashlane said it has patched the bug, issued new SSL certificates and revoked previous ones. |
| LastPass | Yes | Yes | No | “Though LastPass employs OpenSSL, we have multiple layers of encryption to protect our users and never have access to those encryption keys.” Users don’t need to change their master passwords because they’re never sent to the server. But passwords for other sites stored in LastPass might need to be changed. |
