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CVE-2014-0160: Heartbleed

Out-of-bounds Read: Is CVE-2014-0160 real, exploitable, or a false positive? Here's the community verdict.

signals

public sources

Exploited in wild
Yes
CISA KEV
Public exploit
Exploit-DB
Metasploit/EDB/PoC
Base severity
7.5 High
CVSS
Exploitation prob.
100%
FIRST EPSS
Weakness
CWE-125 · Out-of-bounds Read
CWE

Confirmed exploited in the wild. Patch this first, regardless of the base score.

public exploits

links to sources — we don’t host code

A working exploit is publicly available from a maintained source. Treat this as higher urgency and verify your exposure.

baseline read

auto · not a community verdict

Real — exploited in the wild

CISA confirms active exploitation. Treat scanner hits as true positives unless your specific version or config is unaffected.

Based on CISA KEV

Confirm or dispute →

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

The (1) TLS and (2) DTLS implementations in OpenSSL 1.0.1 before 1.0.1g do not properly handle Heartbeat Extension packets, which allows remote attackers to obtain sensitive information from process memory via crafted packets that trigger a buffer over-read, as demonstrated by reading private keys, related to d1_both.c and t1_lib.c, aka the Heartbleed bug.

Published

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In your experience, is this finding real and exploitable?

awaiting field verdicts
Real, but not a risk here
Not a real issue

Curated baseline: TruePositive's read from public sources is Real & exploitable — a starting point, not a community verdict.

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Field notes & remediation

Verdicts are the quick signal. Notes are the evidence and fixes behind them.

  • 0
    Field note · TruePositive EditorialCurated

    Old bug, but still dangerous where it exists. OpenSSL versions 1.0.1 to 1.0.1f let a remote attacker (no login needed) read up to 64KB of server memory in one request, and they can repeat it again and again. That memory often contains private TLS keys, session cookies, passwords, and other users' data. It is not remote code execution, but if the private key leaks, your whole TLS is compromised.

    The part most people miss is not detection. It is that patching alone is not enough. If a server was vulnerable and exposed to the internet, assume the private key already leaked. You must reissue and revoke the certificate, and rotate every secret that could have been in memory.

    On modern systems, a new Heartbleed alert is usually one of two things. Either a very old, forgotten server (patch it now), or a false positive from version matching against a backported or statically-linked OpenSSL. Confirm with an active test (a safe Heartbleed checker) before you panic. But if it confirms, treat it as critical.

    Commonly flagged by: Nessus, Qualys, OpenVAS.

  • 0
    Remediation · TruePositive EditorialCurated

    Upgrade OpenSSL to 1.0.1g or later (or rebuild with -DOPENSSL_NO_HEARTBEATS). Then do the step everyone forgets: revoke and reissue the server certificate, because the private key is assumed leaked. Also rotate session tokens, API keys, and passwords that could have been in memory during the exposure. Force users to log in again.

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Same weakness: CWE-125 · Out-of-bounds Read.