You know it’s officially spring when you have to clean house. In this case, you’re forced to “spring clean” your passwords! Just to start, your SellerVantage password is secure. SellerVantage does not have any credit card numbers on file, nor do we store your PayPal passwords. However, you MUST change your eBay, PayPal, Authorize.net, Amazon, ShipWorks, ShipRush. Google, Yahoo passwords.
Some of you felt the blip in service yesterday as we were down for a short bit patching the vulnerability. Sorry about that, we just wanted you to be secure.
If you entered a credit card, change the password
This is a good rule of thumb regarding what passwords you need to change. “Does this website have my credit card or bank account?” Anyway, this is a great time to come up with a different password than you’ve been using since 1998. Mashable released a comprehensive list of potentially affected websites. Take a look, but really, consider doing a full sweep as I’m sure it’s time to refresh your security.
What happened exactly?
The Heartbleed bug is an encryption flaw exposed on websites that run SSL encryption (Secure Sockets Layer) which is usually what’s used when you enter billing information. It’s a vulnerability, not a virus. But the exposure has most definitely gotten hacker’s attention to take action. Don’t wait to change your passwords.
Do not use the same password everywhere
This seems like it should be a known thing, but when your Facebook password is the same as your Chase password, there’s a problem. Bad about coming up with different passwords? One trick you could do is use the same password, but change it around. “P@S$W0rd” could become “WordP@S$” or even “dorW$S@P” this way it’s the same characters, just try different variations.
Dang it! Now I need to change my password because I just gave it to you…