One prominent item in the news over the last week has been a security threat known as the Heartbleed bug which as affected many of the world’s most used websites, leaving them vulnerable to attack. We will avoid the technical explanation of how the bug works and simply say that Heartbleed allows hackers to steal data directly from users and services like email accounts and social media sites and can even impersonate these services so that you think you are using your account as normal, but are instead giving hackers your personal information.

The security threat is one of the largest in recent memory and businesses should be on guard to protect themselves. Although many websites have now fixed the bug, if people are still using their old passwords they are at threat, as that data may have been stolen before the bug was fixed. This  has led to warnings and advice from global technological and security firms to change all passwords that may have been compromised. Regularly changing any password is a good idea, especially when there is secure data held in accounts, and even more so when a bug such as Heartbleed is threatening security.

The table at the foot of the page shows a selection of websites you may have accounts with, along with recommendations as to whether you should change passwords or not. However, as changing your passwords takes only a couple of minutes, it would be best practice to change every password for accounts that hold sensitive and valuable information.

Buckinghamshire Business First’s business support team are always on hand to help with any concerns or issues you have within your organisation, so please contact us on 01494 568941.