Protect Your Passwords

Have you heard about Heartbleed yet? It’s an encryption flaw in the security framework of OpenSSL security software. More simply put, it’s a bad thing and a big deal.  Some 500,000 websites are estimated to have been affect by the bug, which means your personal information, and your business’s information may have been compromised.

The Heartbleed bug allows hackers to access your usernames, passwords and even browser history 64 kilobytes at a time. For those of you in the know, that isn’t a whole lot of data, but if you repeat the process say a few, oh million times, it adds up.

If you are like us, then you have your information spread out in a lot of places. Do you run your own Facebook page? It’s time to change the password. How about Pinterest – or Tumblr and Flickr accounts? CNN Money has compiled a list of some of the big name companies who have already applied the patch to their network, making it safe to go ahead and change your passwords. You can find that list here.

Here at AIMS, we manage a lot of accounts, which means a whole lot of passwords to remember. We are fortunate in that we already use a password manager to keep track of them all. LastPass has been a great resource for us.  While there are other password management systems out there, we haven’t found one we like more than last pass.  Instead of trying to remember the literally hundreds of passwords under our charge, we just have to remember one master. And lucky for us, even though LastPass does utilize OpenSSL, it is only one of multiple layers of encryption, which helps to ensures that all our data is safe. If you also use LastPass run your security check the site will tell you which passwords need to be changed to protect your personal information from Heartbleed. We did update a few of our social passwords which gave us the chance to change from our favorite color to more complex password like ERi3w29C.

If you don’t already use a password manager like LastPass, then it is time to get started with one. Not only will it store all your passwords for you, it will also help you randomly generate news ones. Further, you can access LastPass from your mobile device or tablet, so it is with you wherever you go.

As a business owner, protecting your passwords starts with you. Don’t let your business get hacked.

 

 

 

 

Source – Heartbleed bug: What you need to know

Photo – © jamdesign – Fotolia.com