How To Fix The Heartbleed Bug

The Heartbleed Bug is being referred to as one of the most horrific Internet Bugs known to hit the Web since its inception. Internet Experts are claiming that ANYONE on the web with a website or accessing websites, social media, secured servers etc. IS affected, no exceptions! All social media sites, shopping channels, online VPN networks, Banks and domains are vulnerable.

Without getting too complicated in the explanation, and in an effort to focus on what you can do to protect yourself, here are the most important steps to making sure you are safe, secure, and protected going forward. Understanding what it is, how it works, then taking the necessary steps and actions to resolve and protect yourself is all that is required.

Everyone Needs to READ and DO THIS No Matter What!

What is the Heartbleed Bug?

According to heartbleed.com, the Heartbleed Bug is “a serious vulnerability in the popular OpenSSL cryptographic software library. This weakness allows stealing the information protected, under normal conditions, by the SSL/TLS encryption used to secure the Internet. SSL/TLS provides communication security and privacy over the Internet for applications such as web, email, instant messaging (IM) and some virtual private networks (VPNs).”

In layman terms, this simply means that the information or passwords you thought were encrypted and protected are actually not secure and private. The suggestion is that every company with a web site should be in the process of updating their security to patch this nasty bug.

What Should I do Next?

Mashable.com has provided a great list of sites you’ll need to visit once they’ve incorporated the security patch, so you can change and update with new passwords, it’s really that simple but you’ll need to make sure that each site has implemented the security patch first. Be sure to check this list for which sites you’ll need to do update.

You will be receiving emails from many websites and online Internet services over the next few days/weeks/months that will look just like this one i received about 15 minutes ago from Issuu.com

Here’s a short video that I personally found very helpful in the explanation of what the Heartbleed bug is, and what you need to do to protect yourself and secure all your online account information. Like it or not, at this very moment your presence and security on the Internet is now one of the most unprotected and vulnerable environments needing your immediate attention!! This is no joke.