A few people have been asking me about the Heartbleed Bug in the internet, so I will pass along what I have been told so far.

This is a security flaw in the OpenSSL software used by many websites to secure their systems against unauthorized entry. The OpenSSL is basically software that is used by webservers to maintain security with transmitted information. It encodes any private information so that anyone snooping on the website won't be able to access information such as banking records or credit card numbers.

However it was discovered last week that the developers inadvertently left a flaw in the system that could allow hackers to access private information. So far there is no confirmed cases of anyone nefarious actually stealing private information, although some rumors are circulating that the police in Canada and in the U.S. may be reviewing possible cases of data theft and identity theft relating to the Heartbleed problem.

Currently, the Canadian banking websites, PayPal, EBay, and Amazon have all said they are unaffected. It is possible that Canada Revenue Agency, Yahoo, Facebook and some smaller online stores have been affected, but they are still working on determining exactly what data was affected.

For now, people should follow the instructions of individual websites and watch their accounts for odd behaviour.