Netcraft adds Heartbleed sniffing to site-scanning browser tool

  • 18 April 2014
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Checks if sites were vulnerable and what they've done about it

By Neil McAllister, 18 Apr 2014  Internet stats clearinghouse Netcraft has released a new tool aimed at letting consumers know when the sites they visit might have been compromised by the Heartbleed encryption bug.
 
There are lots of tools available that can scan servers to determine whether they're affected by the Heartbleed vulnerability right now, albeit of varying effectiveness.
 What makes the new version of the Netcraft browser extension different is that it queries historical data to see whether a site might have been vulnerable prior to the Heartbleed disclosure, even if it has since updated its OpenSSL libraries.
In addition to upgrading their SSL code, sites that were previously vulnerable should also replace their SSL certificates.
 
That's because their old certificates could have been compromised during the time they were running the flawed OpenSSL libraries, potentially allowing attackers to impersonate the sites in phishing attacks and other scams.
If the Netcraft extension determines that a site was vulnerable before news of Heartbleed broke, it checks the date on the site's SSL certificate to make sure it has been recently replaced. If it hasn't, the extension displays an alert.
 
 
 
Full Article
 
 
Interesting appraoch...but with the confusion about whether tools such as these are really effective...I sort of wander what is the point...main thing, IMHO, is that HeartBleed continues to sow confusion...which I think is a big part of it's deadly legacy.

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I installed this extension to Firefox last night out of curiosity and it seems to give quite a bit of information but I think a lot of it will be above the average user if you go beyond the simple red and green slider.
Userlevel 7
Agreed...have also installed the Chrome one from the same article and take a peek from time to time, compare the results with what one gets from this checking website the author of which did the base work on which the extensions are based.
 
If you have not already then take a look and bookmark the site...it is useful.
 
Baldrick
 
 
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I looked at that site when it was first launched, bookmarked it but forgotten about it, thank you for the reminder.

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