Change Your Passwords! (Heartbleed Explained)

The Brian Lehrer Show | Apr 11, 2014

A major security bug, called 'Heartbleed', has left much of our online information vulnerable to theft. Rusty Foster, a computer programmer and writer who wrote about Heartbleed for the New Yorker, explains what the security flaw means for your sensitive information - like credit card numbers - and what you need to do next. Foster also writes the daily "Today in Tabs" newsletter for Newsweek.

A Few Things We Learned from Rusty Foster

  • Change your passwords! There are some people who think that you should wait a few days, since there may still be people accessing your information, but Foster thinks it's a good idea to change the important ones right away.
  • Consult this Mashable guide, which is keeping track of which passwords you should prioritize.
  • Never use the same password for different important accounts! And try to make your passwords complex. 
  • Here are three "password safe" programs that will help you come up with and remember hard-to-crack passwords: 1Password | LastPass | KeePass

 

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