TLS heartbeat extension (later deprecated)

E698189

The TLS heartbeat extension was a Transport Layer Security protocol feature designed to keep secure connections alive and test reachability, later becoming widely known for the critical Heartbleed vulnerability that led to its deprecation.

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Observed surface forms (1)

Surface form Occurrences
TLS heartbeat extension 0

Statements (47)

Predicate Object
instanceOf TLS protocol extension
network protocol feature
abbreviation TLS heartbeat
appliesTo client
server
associatedCVE CVE-2014-0160
associatedVulnerability Heartbleed NERFINISHED
consequence widespread security incident in 2014
definedIn RFC 6520 NERFINISHED
designGoal avoid TCP-level keep-alives for TLS
lightweight keep-alive mechanism
effectOfDeprecation rarely enabled on modern secure deployments
hasField padding
payload
payload length
hasPurpose keep TLS connections alive
reduce need for renegotiation of TLS sessions
test peer reachability
introducedFor DTLS 1.0 NERFINISHED
DTLS 1.2 NERFINISHED
TLS 1.0 NERFINISHED
TLS 1.1 NERFINISHED
TLS 1.2 NERFINISHED
layer transport layer
ledTo changes in operational security practices
increased scrutiny of TLS implementations
revocation and reissuance of many TLS certificates
messageDirection bidirectional
messageType HeartbeatRequest
HeartbeatResponse
negotiatedVia TLS extension mechanism
notableImplementation OpenSSL NERFINISHED
notableImplementationBug OpenSSL Heartbleed bug NERFINISHED
partOf Transport Layer Security NERFINISHED
protocolFamily DTLS NERFINISHED
TLS NERFINISHED
requires support from both peers
securityRecommendation disable heartbeat extension on servers
upgrade vulnerable TLS libraries
standardizedBy Internet Engineering Task Force
surface form: IETF
status deprecated in practice
usesMechanism periodic heartbeat request and response messages
vulnerabilityCause insufficient bounds checking in some implementations
vulnerabilityImpact exposure of user credentials
information disclosure
leakage of process memory
potential exposure of private keys

Referenced by (1)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

TLS Working Group responsibleFor TLS heartbeat extension (later deprecated)