Bloomberg business news service reports that “The U.S. National Security Agency knew for at least two years about a flaw in the way that many websites send sensitive information, now dubbed the Heartbleed bug, and regularly used it to gather critical intelligence, two people familiar with the matter said.”

Heartbleed is thought to effect as many as two thirds of the world’s websites, and may be the biggest security issue in the history of the internet. Researchers have developed a fix for it in the past few days, and many computer companies have implemented a patch in their systems to protect against Heartbleed.

Bloomberg further reports that “Putting the Heartbleed bug in its arsenal, the NSA was able to obtain passwords and other basic data that are the building blocks of the sophisticated hacking operations at the core of its mission, but at a cost. Millions of ordinary users were left vulnerable to attack from other nations’ intelligence arms and criminal hackers.”

Full report by Bloomberg @ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-11/nsa-said-to-have-used-heartbleed-bug-exposing-consumers.html