US Government Denies Heartbleed Prior Knowledge, Confirms It Might Keep Exploits to Itself

• An article first published by Bloomberg last Friday claiming that the NSA was aware of the Heartbleed [PDF] vulnerability for years was promptly denied by the White House.

• However the National Security Council’s rebuttal implies that the Administration may not disclose all vulnerabilities its agencies discover. Bloomberg’s report is based on the claims of two anonymous people “close to the matter.” It sounds unlikely that the NSC would blatantly lie in this specific instance, but they confirmed that in principle the government may withhold knowledge of a similar exploit.