Google engineer detects big bug leaking info from websites

A bug in a code from content distribution firm Cloudflare potentially leaked information from thousands of websites across the globe, a Google engineer recently announced.

The bug in Cloudflare's code, which has already been fixed, meant that whenever it encountered a website based on poorly-constructed HTML with specific errors in it, it allowed data from other sites using Cloudflare programs to leak onto those sites.

Google engineer Tavis Ormandy detected the information-leaking bug on 17th of February and notified the content distribution firm, which successfully fixed the bug.

While the bug has been fixed and there is no reported exploits related to the code-flaw, some cyber security experts remain concerned.

R. J. Gazarek, product manager at Washington D. C.-based Thycotic, said, "This is the equivalent of opening up hardcopy file rooms across the world and just dumping the contents out the window. Hopefully nobody bad reads the right paper, and it all gets washed away. However, that's highly unlikely to be the case."

Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince also admitted that the bug could have been very bad for a large number of websites. However, he added that it affected only a small subset of websites.