We’ve all heard about the Heartbleed bug, which is being called one of the biggest security threats the internet has ever seen. But do you change your passwords now? or wait until the patch is finished? Which sites were affected?
Some companies have fixed the issue with a security patch and you should go to those sites immediately to change your passwords. Of course, there are no guarantees that your information hasn’t already been compromised, but the hackers have probably only had a week to do their damage.
According to a recent article from Mashable, the leading source for technology news:
Although changing your password regularly is always good practice, if a site or service hasn’t yet patched the problem, your information will still be vulnerable.
Also, if you reused the same password on multiple sites, and one of those sites was vulnerable, you’ll need to change the password everywhere. It’s not a good idea to use the same password across multiple sites, anyway.
This helpful article lists the latest information (as of April 12, 2014) about which sites have been compromised, were affected, have a patch, and if you need to change your password.
See the article and the complete chart here.
If you use any of these sites, please go change your password right away:
- Tumblr
- Google – Search, Gmail, YouTube, Wallet, Play, Apps & App Engine
- Yahoo – Home page, Search, Mail, Finance, Sports, Food, Tech, Flickr, and Tumblr
- Amazon web services (not the regular store; this issue affects services used by website operators)
- Etsy
- GoDaddy
- Minecraft
- Netflix
- SoundCloud
- USAA
- Box
- Dropbox
- GitHub
- IFTTT
- OkCupid
- Wikipedia
- WordPress (unclear)
- Wunderlist
The following sites say they were not affected or that you don’t need to change the password for other reasons (see the site charts for individual statements from the companies):
- Twitter (unclear)
- Apple
- Amazon
- Microsoft
- AOL
- Hotmail/Outlook
- eBay
- Groupon
- Nordstrom
- PayPal
- Target
- Walmart
- Hulu
- Bank of America
- Barclays
- Capital One
- Chase
- Citigroup
- E*Trade
- Fidelity
- PNC
- Schwab
- Scottrade
- TD Ameritrade
- TD Bank
- T. Rowe Price
- U.S. Bank
- Vanguard
- Wells Fargo
- 1040.com
- FileYourTaxes.com
- H&R Block
- Healthcare.gov
- Intuit (Turbo Tax)
- IRS
- TaxACT
- Evernote
- Spark Networks (JDate, Christian Mingle)
- SpiderOak
- 1Password
- Dashlane
- LastPass
Keep up on the details at Mashable.com. I’ve got to run. I have some passwords to change!
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