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The online world is a vast universe. It helps us by making things easier. From paying bills, to entertainment and pretty much everything in between. But the online realm is also packed with serious threats that can seriously damage us. One of the downsides of internet is the online bug or the virus. The latest discovery is the Heartbleed internet bug that is threatening online security. The Heartbleed virus puts financial information, emails and personal passwords at risk.
The researchers have discovered the new bug in the encryption technology. This technology is used by 2/3 of the Web world.
The Heartbleed internet bug is actually a flaw in OpenSSL and it affects many sites that deal with the collection of financial and personal information. Cybercriminals can use this bug to access the personal data of visitors on certain sites and steal them.
The Heartbleed internet bug was discovered by a researcher from Google and a Finnish security company called Codenomicon. You can find all the information you need about the bug on their dedicated site.
Although the researchers discovered this bug last week it seems that it has been on the web since March 2012 putting a lot of personal information at risk. What’s unusual about this bug is that it cannot be fixed like other internet viruses. Both the compromised websites and the people who have used them need to take action and report any suspicious activities.
For a better data protection, the researchers advice sites to upgrade to the patched version of OpenSSL, revoke the SSL certificates that have been compromised and ask for new ones to be issued.
Individuals should update the passwords on the web pages they use only if they’ve confirmed a site that has addressed any Heartbleed related issues. A lot of sites will send emails to the users instructing them to update their passwords if necessary.
