SAN DIEGO — Red Apple Media has issued a notice to its clients that its network has not been breached by the “Heartbleed” OpenSSL vulnerability.
The company said the security weakness affected websites of all sizes and categories, and allowed hackers to steal protected information including usernames, passwords, financial information and more, through a weakness in SSL/TLS encryption with no traceable trail.
OpenSSL is the backbone of a number of programs and services that allow SSL or TLS based protocols, as well as almost 60 percent or more of websites that offer HTTPS connections, according to Red Apple.
The hack affected everything from Yahoo.com to RollingStone.com and sent consumers and business owners around the globe scrambling to change passwords and update cryptographic protocols and SSL certificates.
Completed hours after it was reported, a comprehensive security audit confirmed all Red Apple Media servers were safe from exploit.
“It is important to keep our clients safe and their servers updated; it’s part of the exceptional service we offer,” said Steven Daris, CEO and co-founder.
Now the company is allowing industry members — whether or not they are clients — to be protected using a tool to test any site's vulnerability.
“While we know not every company can host with us, we have a team of security and IT experts on staff available to answer any questions about this significant security breach. In the adult industry, user data protection is key not only for credit card and payment processing but also for discretion and privacy of site members. The Heartbleed flaw exposed both valuable members’ information, but also that of our very own networks — and if they haven’t already, adopting Fixed SSL and alerting users should be every industry member’s number one priority."
Daris noted that his company has the tools and team not only to make this switch fast and easy, but also to maintain top-level data protection for years to come. He said, "It’s important to be proactive, rather than reactive, and this Heartbleed bug has reminded us to think ahead and be smarter about our security.”
The bright side of this Heartbleed “disaster” is that the infrastructure of the cyber criminals’ hacking methods have been exposed. Red Apple said it now knows exactly how they are making their way into clients’ networks — and how to keep them out.
“A good managed hosting package and a close relationship with your hosting provider will go a long way toward optimizing your security,” Daris said. “Many companies simply aren’t staffed with IT professionals who can handle the broad range of tasks and techniques that are required to provide solid security in-house, so it’s common sense to work with a host that has expertise, manpower, and service packages that include the essentials: robust firewalls, software that detects and prevents unauthorized server access, traffic-tracking to detect sudden bandwidth spikes, intrusion attempts, and other indicators of malicious use of your sites. Security can be a daunting subject for business owners, but these security protection challenges can’t be ignored.”
For more information about the security services, email steven@redapplemedia.com, or call (888) 321-6239.
