One of the biggest scares that rocked the tech world recently is the Heartbleed bug. This bug literally, stole the heart beats of major corporations and security agencies like the FBI. The fact that information leaked in 64KB at a time on infected computers and that it affected systems and servers that used OpenSSL was a scare to Google and other biggies like Yahoo!, OkCupid and the other half  a million sites it affected. While efforts to contain the virus and limit its effects are in full swing by Google and Codenomicon, a deeper look into everyday devices that could have been affected has to be taken.

It is no secret that most of us are glued to our phones. We like, post, text, tweet, re-tweet, instagram, surf and watch our favourite kitten videos on YouTube on our phones. The ease and accessibility built in the smart phone makes it the go to device to do all these things and more. Google’s Android apps are all OpenSSL  encrypted and the threat of being one of the biggest OS for phones is looming on Android. Being an open source project, most of our phones too have been affected by this bug. Think of all the times you surfed Facebook, or tweeted someone or posted an instagram pic of you at the party downtown, you’ve been unconsciously giving out information about yourself to this bug. One of the first things researchers did was find a cure for this bug and then give us a list of apps that not only affected Android but all cross-platform apps.

Following the outbreak of the Heartbleed bug, Lookout Security, released an app called the Heartbleed Security Scanner. The app is a scanner that determines if your version of Android is using the OpenSSL version that is affected. The PlayStore additionally mentions that  Lookout has released this app as a diagnostic tool to let you know if your smart phone is using apps running on vulnerable OpenSSL versions and does not include a fix or patch. Google will fix this issue with Android with a patch that seems to be coming in the near future. They collect information only when they explicitly ask you to give it to them, and so you can choose whether you want to or not. Well, hopefully you’ve reset your passwords and like me just added this scanner. It is never bad to be safe than sorry.