How to Deal with HeartBleed

— 3 minute read

Ever feel like the whole entirety of the internet has been compromised and all your information may have been stolen by hackers?

Me too.

Here's what you can do about it.

Step 1 permalink

Buy 1Password for your Mac. It's on sale for 50% off right now in the Mac App Store.

While you're waiting for it to download and install...

Step 2 permalink

Watch Don Mcallister’s free tutorial video on using 1Password 4.

Don does a great job of explaining details of an application from the very basic to the advanced. I've written about Don and ScreenCastsOnline before and even interviewed him on a podcast. Don's a great teacher and it's worth looking into a membership on his site if you need some Mac and iOS training.

Step 3 permalink

Generate new passwords for your valued accounts on Facebook, Geocities, Minecraft, Friendster and of course MySpace. Oh, and your bank, email address(es) and Amazon account.

Optional Step 4 permalink

Pick up 1Password for iOS so you can have all your fresh new passwords on the go on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. The built in 1Password browser makes it super easy to use really long, complicated passwords on your mobile device. Much better than 'password1234'.

Don McAllister has a tutorial video on using 1Password for iOS as part of his membership program that you can check out.

Now you just have to remember one password instead of 10 - 50 passwords.

A Request permalink

If you're too lazy, cheap or scared to try the above - at the very least change your email password to something secure and not easily figured out. If a hacker gets your email address, they can probably get into pretty much anything else doing simple password reset requests.

If you use a Gmail account, consider enabling 2 factor authentication which means you have to enter a code from your smartphone before logging in.

Here's a list of a bunch of other sites that, as of December 2013, supported two factor authentication as well. Don McAllister has a great tutorial video on this as well.

Windows User? permalink

Are you a Windows user looking to improve your security? You're in luck - 1Password has released a version for Windows. Using Dropbox you can keep the passwords in sync across Windows, Mac and iOS.