​What is Heartbleed, anyway?

If you're an IT professional, gadget blogger or token geek in your circle of friends, chances are, you've been hounded relentlessly over the past couple of days about "this Heartbleed thing."

"Do I need to update my antivirus?"

"Can I login to my bank account now?"

"Google already fixed it, right?"

We've heard them all, but the answers aren't all that clear or simple. In an attempt to take the pressure off -- it is the weekend after all -- we've put together a primer that should answer all of those questions and a few more. Next time someone asks you about that "Heartbleed thing," just shoot them in our direction.

HOW IT WORKS

The problem affects a piece of software called OpenSSL, used for security on popular web servers. With OpenSSL, websites can provide encrypted information to visitors, so the data transferred (including usernames, passwords and cookies) cannot be seen by others while it goes from your computer to the website.

OpenSSL is an open-source project, meaning it was developed by really talented volunteers, free of charge, to help the internet community. It happens that version 1.0.1 of OpenSSL, released on April 19th, 2012, has a little bug (a mistake introduced by a programmer) that allows for a person (including a malicious hacker) to retrieve information on the memory of the web server without leaving a trace. This honest mistake was introduced with a new feature implemented by Dr. Robin Seggelmann, a German programmer who often contributes security code.

Heartbleed exploits a built-in feature of OpenSSL called heartbeat.

Heartbleed exploits a built-in feature of OpenSSL called heartbeat. When your computer accesses a website, the website will respond back to let your computer know that it is active and listening for your requests: This is the heartbeat. This call and response is done by exchanging data. Normally when your computer makes a request, the heartbeat will only send back the amount of data your computer sent. However, this is not the case for servers currently affected by the bug. The hacker is able to make a request to the server and request data from the server's memory beyond the total data of the initial request, up to 65,536 bytes.

Much more here