Cybersecurity

The Branding of a Bug: How Heartbleed Became a Household Name

The Heartbleed.com information website on April 17, 2014. Photograph: Alex Milan Tracy/Sipa USA via AP Images
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In the world of marketing, Heartbleed was a bloody masterpiece.

While it's standard practice for cyber-security companies to assign newly discovered Internet attacks with cloak-and-dagger-sounding names like Night Dragon and Operation Clandestine Fox, that's typically not the case for programming errors, which inherently aren't as sexy and are often quickly fixed after they're announced.