Two years of compromised Linux security exposed

A recently revealed vulnerability with Debian OpenSSL cryptographic libraries, covered in detail within the Debian Security Advisory DSA-1571-1, allows secure web sessions to be potentially decrypted by an attacker. In fact, the vulnerability impacts on Debian children distros as well, but that is almost by the by. What isn’t is the reasoning for the vulnerability to exist in the first place. Now you might be assuming that, like most of these things, a bit of unintentionally sloppy and insecure programming during development was to blame. While the words sloppy and insecure certainly still spring to mind, unintentional most certainly does not.