Member-only story
Cloudbleed Incident.
How one line of code almost blew up the internet?
There have been many incidents in the past where a single line of code has caused significant issues, but one of the most famous examples is the “Cloudbleed” incident that occurred in February 2017.
Cloudflare, a content delivery network and cybersecurity company, inadvertently introduced a bug in their code that caused sensitive information, such as passwords and personal information, to leak from websites that used their services. This was caused by a single line of code that contained a typo, which caused a buffer overrun.
The bug was introduced when Cloudflare was updating their code to address a separate security issue. Unfortunately, this introduced the new vulnerability, and it went undetected for months.
The impact of the incident was significant, with potentially millions of websites affected, including popular services like Uber, OkCupid, and Fitbit. Cloudflare quickly patched the bug and notified their customers, but the incident highlights how even a small mistake in coding can have massive consequences.
Fortunately, there have been lessons learned from incidents like this, and companies have implemented more rigorous testing and security measures to prevent similar incidents in the future.