Heartbleed Notification

What is Heartbleed?

The Internet was recently rocked by a widespread security vulnerability known as Heartbleed. By God's grace and provision Blue Letter Bible was not affected.

Heartbleed is a flaw in the way many websites transfer sensitive information over the Internet including usernames, passwords, and even credit card information. The Heartbleed flaw could potentially allow a malicious person to gain access to this private information on a vulnerable website server. For more information on Heartbleed and an understanding of which websites were affected, see this article.

Is my Blue Letter Bible account safe?

Information security is a very high priority for all of us at Blue Letter Bible. First and foremost we want to thank and acknowledge God for protecting Blue Letter Bible from this vulnerability. Secondly, we combine a high level of expertise and an even higher level of prayer on a daily basis in order to maintain the safety and security of our website and the information entrusted to us.

While our website was unaffected directly by the Heartbleed vulnerability, there still may be some cause for concern. If you are like the vast majority of people who use webpages and services on the Internet, you may be using the same password for many different websites. Our concern is that a password and email/username combination that was compromised at another website could be used to gain access to your account at Blue Letter Bible. This is true ONLY IF the passwords for both sites are the same.

The following specific domains were NOT affected by Heartbleed:

• blueletterbible.org
• BLBi.org
• blb-christian-books.org

What should I do now?

First, don't panic. The Word of God is clear that we should not be anxious, but rather prayerful and thankful in all things (Philippians 4:6). There is a lot of fear and confusion out there regarding HeartBleed, which many news sources are calling the biggest security breach in the history of the modern Internet. In contrast we as Christians should shine brightly (Matthew 5:16), knowing that our present and eternal hope is built on the firm foundation of Christ (Luke 6:48) not on the shifting sands of Internet security.

Second, be wise (Proverbs 1:5). There are a number of valuable resources available online to help respond to and minimize the security risks posed by vulnerabilities like HeartBleed. The article by Symantec Heartbleed: Information from Symantec on OpenSSL Vulnerability is a great place to start.