“Imagine if you woke up one morning and found that Walmart was now selling a device for $5 that could easily and instantly open almost any deadbolt lock. That’s right – the kind of lock that’s supposed to provide “extra protection” to almost every door on earth. That's the scale of the security problem posed by the Heartbleed bug,” says Kevin Morris of the Electronics Engineering Journal (April 15, 2014). Heartbleed is a “security flaw discovered in April 2014 that allows hackers to access passwords and personal information,” states the Encyclopedia of Technology. This OpenSSL security flaw was discovered by Finnish network security company Codenomicon. It was able to extract supposedly secure information from more than 17% of all websites without leaving a trace. Some of the big names with this vulnerability were Google, Instagram, Tumblr, Gmail, Minecraft, and many other popular sites. In order to prevent identity theft, all sites listed recommend that their users change their passwords now that the problem has been resolved. As a user of the World Wide Web, it is your responsibility to learn more about Heartbleed, to help protect your online identity and ensure that it is protected now and in the future. “A widespread vulnerability in OpenSSL, the library software used to secure communications over the Web, has compromised the security of hundreds of thousands of Web servers and sent online businesses scrambling to close the security hole,” says a bold title written by Robert L. from issue 1 of Eweek magazine. 2014). Heartbleed allows a hacker to extract what was previously considered secure information using several rudimentary principles...... middle of paper ...... accessed April 22, 2014, by EBSCOJanssen, C. ( April 14, 2014). What is Heartbleed virus? - Definition from Techopedia. Techopedia. Retrieved April 28, 2014, from http://www.techopedia.com/definition/30173/heartbleed-bug (Used as an alternative for a reference work) Kerner, S. (2014). Even before Heartbleed, improper use of SSL put users at risk. Eweek, 2. Retrieved April 22, 2014 from EBSCO Kleinman, B. and Morris, K. (April 15, 2014). Heartbleed: Serious security vulnerability. The Journal of Electronic Engineering. Retrieved April 25, 2014 from http://www.eejournal.com/archives/articles/20140415-heartbleed/Lemos, R. (2014). OpenSSL “Heartbleed” flaw can leak passwords and encryption keys. Eweek, 1. Retrieved April 22, 2014 from EBSCOThe Heartbleed Bug. (April 15, 2014). Heart Bleeding Bug. Retrieved April 22, 2014 from http://heartbleed.com/