Heart Bleed Virus

Just the other day there was a new case involving the “Heart Bleed Virus.”  This Heart Bleed virus has been affecting many websites on the Internet for the past two years, but has recently been affecting many more important companies and causing what could turn out to be major security breaches.  The Heart Bleed virus attacks the OpenSSL encryption software.  This has to do with the coding of these websites.  If breeched, hackers are able to steal credit card numbers, confidential passwords, and other personal information. 

            This article talks about how you should be conscious of the websites you go on, the types of passwords that you choose to create, and how easy it is for hackers to hack into large databases that store confidential information and steal the data from that in particular website. 

            In order to protect yourself from being a victim of getting your passwords and personal information stolen, there are a few easy things that you can do in order to protect yourself against this.  Since this Heart Bleed virus is affecting major companies such as Facebook, Yahoo, Gmail, Amazon, Banks, and many more major companies, they are implementing a two-factor authentication process.  This means, that now when you sign into your account on these websites with your created password, you also enter a code that was assigned to you when you updated your account. 

            The next way to protect yourself is to have different passwords for websites.  Do not use the same password for everything.  I know that I am personally guilty of this, and I am pretty sure that many of us are.  I use the same password for many different websites that I create accounts on.  When it comes to like passwords for my banking account or work related things my passwords are much longer and much more secure.  You do not want to use passwords like your pets name or “password.”  This is the first thing that a hacker would try to take a guess at.  If hackers can crack the password to major companies with some of the most secure networks in the world, such as a company like Cisco, which has been attacked by the Heart Bleed virus, they can easily gain access to your Facebook account. 

            Cyber-security is always being compromised on a day-to-day basis.  There is no real way to protect every website in the world and all the data in all the databases that exist.  Everyone is vulnerable to this and this Heart Bleed virus if affecting more than half the websites out there today.  This is a huge problem because these hackers are stealing your personal information, which can lead to identity theft and worse things.  Hackers are getting more and more creative everyday and companies need to stay on top of their security networks and monitor them and make sure that there are no errors like this.  Companies need to stay on top of this because it is not only effecting the company, but it is affecting all the data in the databases about their customers and putting them at risk. 

http://blogs.wsj.com/personal-technology/2014/04/09/how-and-why-to-change-your-passwords-today/?KEYWORDS=security+flaw