An extremely critical security vulnerability in the cryptographic software library an estimated 66% of web servers utilize, in the April 2014 Web Server Survey by Netcraft, to identify themselves to end users was recently discovered.
OpenSSL is the Internet's most popular cryptographic library that is used to protect web servers, email servers, VPN servers, network appliances and other client side software solutions.
Service providers such as Google, Yahoo, GoDaddy, Intuit (TurboTax), Amazon Web Services, Dropbox and many others utilize OpenSSL and were impacted by Heartbleed.
Heartbleed has resided in production versions of OpenSSL for more than two years, which made it possible for attackers to recover the private encryption key at the heart of digital certificates. The attack leaves no traces in the server logs, so there's no way of knowing if the bug was actively being exploited.
Since Heartbleed was announced, websites across the globe have been patching their systems, with the majority of sites now patched. Although security researchers at Google and software security firm Codenomicon said even after websites install the patch, they may remain vulnerable to attacks if an attacker has already obtained the site's private key or passwords used to administer the site.
Mashable has created a list of top sites that were affected and if you need to change your password associated with the site. Considering the facts, I would strongly suggest you take the time and go through and update all of your passwords.
You can also check to see if your site is infected by going here.
When changing your passwords, remember to utilize different passwords for your banking, social media and standard websites. By utilizing different passwords in the future you are able to simply reset those that need to be changed and not worry about every password. Also, consider utilizing a password manger like KeyPass or 1Password to keep track of your passwords securely.
Heartbleed is just the latest security vulnerability to threaten the HTTPS platform.
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