Respond to the Heartbleed Vulnerability by Changing Passwords

Due to the recent Heartbleed bug, I spent the morning updating passwords on the sites I use most often, and you should as well. What is it? The Heartbleed bug exposes private keys and other secret online information in a way that leaves no trace. As a result this threat is serious, and users should consider updating passwords for frequently used websites.

According to Heartbleed.com, this vulnerability popular OpenSSL cryptographic software library used by many websites such as Yahoo, Google, Pinterest, Tumblr, and more. Essentially, this bug allows anonymous users to snoop on your communications, steal data, and impersonate services and users.

What can be done? An updated OpenSSL has been released and affected websites are now in the processing of deploying it. Once the impacted websites are updated, users should updates their passwords.

How do you know which sites are impacted and which sites have updated their OpenSSL? There are a few options that can help. Yesterday, Mashable posted a listed of top sites that have been impacted, as well as which sites have updated their OpenSSL, and they promise to update the site as new information is available.

You might also consider using password keepers sites like Dashlane, Lastpass, 1Password and SplashID. These sites help you track your ever-increasing portfolio of passwords in a secure manner. Many of these services already provide a service that will search all your site and associated paswords, and then notify you which passwords should be updated.

Personally, I use LastPass, and I ran a security check on all my sites. The results should sites that were impacted, sites that I should update the passwords, and sites that I need to wait until they update their OpenSSL.

This recent threat is a good reminder for all of us to update passwords, avoid duplicating passwords between sites, and consider using a password keeper to track passwords.

For a more technical exploration of Heartbleed, here is a helpful video:

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