Well here’s yet another case of that famous German Gründlichkeit in action (that means thoroughness).

A major Internet security bug that affects websites like Google and Facebook has been discovered, leaving users’ financial details and emails vulnerable to theft by cybercriminals.

The so-called “Heartbleed bug” was discovered in OpenSSL software—an encryption service used by around two-thirds of websites to protect information sent to and from Web pages.

The German software developer responsible says that he didn’t deliberately make the mistake when he was working on the popular OpenSSL software. Honest.

“In one of the new features, unfortunately, I missed validating a variable containing a length.”