Heartbleed was one of the worst internet flaws that has ever been uncovered and now the world’s biggest technology firms will now donate money to fund the support of OpenSSL, the software that was at the centre of the Heartbleed bug.

Amazingly, the maintenance of the software, that secures around 2/3 of the world’s websites, was undertaken by a group of under financed volunteers. Now, companies such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon will support the initiative by donating $300,000 each over the next 3 years. 

Experts estimate that the Heartbleed bug will cost businesses tens of million of dollars in lost productivity as they update systems with safer versions of OpenSSL.

The Heartbleed bug exposed more than just people’s passwords and credit card details. It also highlighted that the crucial piece of software is maintained by a small group of developers who receive donations averaging about $2,000 a year to support the project.

Perhaps the biggest concern for consumers is that until the flaw was found nobody really seemed to care about the software that was securing major websites around the world. Ironically, the code change that was at fault was undertaken at 23:00 on New year’s Eve probably tells you all you need to know!

Hopefully, with this scare now behind us, and with major firms investing in SSL and its development our personal details will be much safer on line.