Efficient Mail Queue Management Clearing All Messages in Exim with Ease (Updated August 2024)

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.

What leaks in practice?

We have tested some of our own services from attacker's perspective. We attacked ourselves from outside, without leaving a trace. Without using any privileged information or credentials we were able steal from ourselves the secret keys used for our X.509 certificates, user names and passwords, instant messages, emails and business critical documents and communication.

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

Bug was introduced to OpenSSL in December 2011 and has been out in the wild since OpenSSL release 1.0.1 on 14th of March 2012. OpenSSL 1.0.1g released on 7th of April 2014 fixes the bug.

How common are the vulnerable OpenSSL versions?

The vulnerable versions have been out there for over two years now and they have been rapidly adopted by modern operating systems. A major contributing factor has been that TLS versions 1.1 and 1.2 came available with the first vulnerable OpenSSL version (1.0.1) and security community has been pushing the TLS 1.2 due to earlier attacks against TLS (such as the BEAST).

How about operating systems?

Some operating system distributions that have shipped with potentially vulnerable OpenSSL version:

• 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 10 May 2012) and 5.4 (OpenSSL 1.0.1c 10 May 2012)
• FreeBSD 10.0 - OpenSSL 1.0.1e 11 Feb 2013
• NetBSD 5.0.2 (OpenSSL 1.0.1e)
• OpenSUSE 12.2 (OpenSSL 1.0.1c)

Operating system distribution with versions that are not vulnerable:

• Debian Squeeze (oldstable), OpenSSL 0.9.8o-4squeeze14
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
• FreeBSD 8.4 - OpenSSL 0.9.8y 5 Feb 2013
• FreeBSD 9.2 - OpenSSL 0.9.8y 5 Feb 2013
• FreeBSD 10.0p1 - OpenSSL 1.0.1g (At 8 Apr 18:27:46 2014 UTC)
• FreeBSD Ports - OpenSSL 1.0.1g (At 7 Apr 21:46:40 2014 UTC)

How can OpenSSL be fixed?

Even though the actual code fix may appear trivial, OpenSSL team is the expert in fixing it properly so fixed version 1.0.1g or newer should be used. If this is not possible software developers can recompile OpenSSL with the handshake removed from the code by compile time option -DOPENSSL_NO_HEARTBEATS.