| A very serious vulnerability has just been discovered in OpenSSL, a very popular cryptographic library.
According to the freshly released security bulletin by The OpenSSL Project, a missing bounds check in the handling of the TLS Heartbeat Extension can be used to reveal up to 64k of memory to a connected client or server.
In practice, this allows the stealing of protected information by the SSL/TLS encryption used.
SSL/TLS protocols provide communication security and privacy over the Internet for applications such as web, email, instant messaging (IM) and some virtual private networks (VPNs). Attackers can steal secret keys, user names and passwords, instant messages, emails and business’ critical documents and communication – all of this without leaving a trace.
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.
As of today, a number of Nix*-like operating systems are affected, since they are packaged with vulnerable OpenSSL:
- Debian Wheezy (Stable), OpenSSL 1.0.1e-2+deb7u4)
- Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS, OpenSSL 1.0.1-4ubuntu5.11)
- CentOS 6.5, OpenSSL 1.0.1e-15)
- Fedora 18, OpenSSL 1.0.1e-4
- OpenBSD 5.3 (OpenSSL 1.0.1c) ? 5.4 (OpenSSL 1.0.1c)
- FreeBSD 8.4 (OpenSSL 1.0.1e) ? 9.1 (OpenSSL 1.0.1c)
- NetBSD 5.0.2 (OpenSSL 1.0.1e)
- OpenSUSE 12.2 (OpenSSL 1.0.1c)
Packages with older OpenSSL versions – Debian Squeeze (oldstable), OpenSSL 0.9.8o-4squeeze14, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server – are free of this flaw.
What versions of the OpenSSL are affected?
Status of different versions:
- OpenSSL 1.0.1 through 1.0.1f (inclusive) are vulnerable
- OpenSSL 1.0.1g is NOT vulnerable
- OpenSSL 1.0.0 branch is NOT vulnerable
- OpenSSL 0.9.8 branch is NOT vulnerable
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