Less Than Half of Internet Users have Updated after Heartbleed

A new study published on April 30 by the Pew Research Center reveals that less than half of the Internet users who were aware of the Heartbleed took steps to protect themselves.

The Heartbleed security flaw was first revealed on April 7 by the open-source OpenSSL project. OpenSSL is an open-source cryptographic library that provides Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption for data in transport. The Heartbleed flaw is technically identified as CVE-2014-0160 and called “TLS heartbeat read overrun” and could enable an attacker to get access to information that is supposed to be encrypted with SSL.

OpenSSL is widely used on servers and embedded devices including mobile phones, giving the Heartbleed vulnerability significant global impact. According to the Pew study of 1,501 American adults surveyed between April 23-27, 64 percent of surveyed Internet users had heard about the Heartbleed flaw.

Read the full story at eWEEK:
Internet Users Failing to Protect Themselves From Heartbleed

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.