Thank the hackers. This week's Heartbleed vulnerability has everyone running scared (see box below to read what you might do to protect yourself). The serious crack in the foundations of the supposedly secure internet was revealed earlier this week by a software engineer probing website security in his spare time.
He received a cash bounty for his work, which he then donated to the Freedom of the Press Foundation, an organisation that funds encryption tools for journalists.

The idea of publicly rewarding people who discover bugs could greatly improve internet security. New Scientist spoke with Merijn Terheggen, CEO and co-founder of HackerOne, the platform through which Google's Neel Mehta received his $15,000 reward.