[LINK] The Heartbleed Bug in OpenSSL

[Rick Welykochy]

Gentle Linkers,

The Heartbleed Bug has been plaguing Apache and nginx web servers
for a couple of years.

The press has gone wild with announcements today. From what I have read
there is no evidence that the bug has been exploited in the wild. But attacking
communication system that have this bug leaves no trace in logs, i.e. attacks
are undetectable.


Information on the bug:

http://heartbleed.com/

    The Heartbleed Bug is a serious vulnerability in the popular OpenSSL cryptographic software library. This weakness allows stealing the information protected, under normal conditions, by the
    SSL/TLS encryption used to secure the Internet. SSL/TLS provides communication security and privacy over the Internet for applications such as web, email, instant messaging (IM) and some virtual
    private networks (VPNs).

    The Heartbleed bug allows anyone on the Internet to read the memory of the systems protected by the vulnerable versions of the OpenSSL software. This compromises the secret keys used to identify
    the service providers and to encrypt the traffic, the names and passwords of the users and the actual content. This allows attackers to eavesdrop on communications, steal data directly from the
    services
    and users and to impersonate services and users.


Detecting the bug on web services you use:

https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html

    This free online service performs a deep analysis of the configuration of any SSL web server on the public Internet. *Please note that the information you submit here is used only to provide you
    the service. We don't use the domain names or the test results, and we never will.*



I've checked Westpac and it appears unaffected.

rgds
rickw


-- 
------------------------------------
Rick Welykochy || Vitendo Consulting

Little is needed to make a wise man happy,
but nothing can content a fool.
      -- La Rochefoucauld