As many of you may have read, there is a vulnerability in the open source software used for encrypting websites, OpenSSL.  Unfortunately, many sites are affected by this vulnerability and are working incredibly hard to patch the affected software. The vulnerability leaves masses of people at risk of having their passwords revealed.  Although many banks and other financial institutions may not be affected, many people use the same passwords for many different sites.  One site may reveal your password to another.

The Heartbleed Bug

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.

http://heartbleed.com/

If you are worried that sites you have visited may have exposed your passwords, you simply cannot just go and change your passwords.  If you change your password on a site that has not patched OpenSSL, you are just exposing another password.  Until the system administrators catch up, we are all exposed.

We have worked hard to patch all of our servers and can report to you that none of them are affected by this vulnerability.  The proof is in the pudding… visit this website to see for yourself.

http://filippo.io/Heartbleed/#codwebhosting.com

If you have any concerns or questions, please feel free to reach out to us.