Tech Tip

Yesterday, I wrote a long article about the Heartbleed vulnerability, which you can find here, and passed along advice from tech guru Ed Bott, who writes for ZDNet, to get a password manager.  I think that CNET is reading our emails, because today they have an article here titled, “Beyond Heartbleed: Why you need a password manager.”

As the article notes (as does Ed), password managers won't resolve the Heartbleed issue, but will make it easier to deal with.

They mention two products, RoboForm and LastPass.  Ed's recommendation is RoboForm.  I've taken his recommendations often in the past, and have lived to be very happy about it.

It's worth nothing, too, that the above article mentions that LastPass is offering a free service on its website where people can enter the URL of any website to find out if it's been compromised by the Heartbleed hole.  They’ll report back on the site’s current status in regards to whether it’s vulnerable to Heartbleed in the first place (not all are) and if it’s been patched.  I tried a couple of sites, and it seemed impressive.  Whether it’s accurate or not, I have no idea.  You can find the link here.

There are other similar services, like the one I linked to here from CNET which provides information on the top 100 sites.  I liked the LastPass form because it could be used for any and all websites, though the CNET information is valuable because it's mainly the top sites which are of the most concern  But not the only concern, since you might have a account at a local bank which isn't among the top 100.