Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

It was released as both: we thought that our old protection against swap protected us against Heartbleed. What a stroke of luck. We did check for key values visible in the heap, and on our implementation, in our lab, didn't find them on any version of our software used since we took OpenSSL 1.0.1.

We weren't looking for the CRT values.

As one part of our response, we decided to publish the code we thought was keeping us safe. If we were right, sure, there's good PR from that. If we were wrong, it's a chance to find out and get right. Less wrong, anyway.



Decisions were made about certificate revocation based on assumptions about this code and Akamai customers ended up being exposed.

Perhaps third-party security validation of such a critical piece of code should be a prerequisite before asserting that no further countermeasures such as key rotation were necessary. Such an action would demonstrate significant diligence as compared to a public release days after you've told customers there was nothing to worry about.

Additionally, that public release didn't directly encourage security review, the deprecating comments on the post were primarily around portability and design.




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2026 batch! Applications are open till July 27.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: