HOW TO PROTECT YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS FROM HEARTBLEED BUG?

My Name is Pere Hospital

IT Security Expert & Cloud Specialist - CISSP, OSCP Certified.

Founder, Cloudways (Managed Cloud Hosting Platform)

Find me on Twitter: @Phospital

Why Heartbleed Bug is a Big Deal ?

According to CNN:

Two thirds of the web sites and applications that allow you to do online banking or communicate privately through e-mail, voice, or instant messaging use OpenSSL to protect your communications.

That is why a bug in OpenSSL that can render the private information you are transmitting across the wire, visible to attackers. And this is a very big deal.

So, How to Protect Yourself From Heartbleed Bug?

If you are focusing on WHAT TO DO about it (especially if you have an online business of any kind). This is an overview of what I would suggest.

5-Step Strategy

Step 1 Carefully assess what is the level of

sensitivity of the data that you have been “protecting” via SSL. (Find out how many SSL certificates you have and where you are using them and to protect what).

Step 2 Consider that there may be sensitive

information that you are outsourcing already (i.e. to payment providers). In this case, you will have to ask them, what they have done about this bug, and how they have protected the sensitive data they handle on your behalf.

Step 3 Once you have gathered the relevant

information, you need to decide about taking any further actions.

Step 4 The very first thing you need to do is

rebuild your defenses, so you need to re-issue your SSL certificates. Then, replace the old ones with the newly-issued certificates. Most importantly, you should revoke all the old certificates to ensure that no other (future) data can be intercepted.

Step 5 Finally, you need to assess which kind of

sensitive information you were “protecting” via SSL and act accordingly  (i.e. resetting user passwords, changing credentials in third party services—and the list continues).

Concluding Words… As more information becomes available,

other actions will have to be considered, but with what we know so far, above steps look like a sensible approach to me.

Sincerely,Pere Hospital

@phospital Also read: Cloudways’ comprehensive coverage on Heartbleed bug