Et Tu SSL?

~~Et tu SSL?
Last month the tech world was filled with stories about the Heartbleed bug. The Heartleed bug was called one of the more serious breaches in security in recent times. What makes is scarier is that the breadth of its impact won’t be exactly known since it went undetected for such a long time and it was in a form of encryption that was thought to be safe and unbreakable: SSL and TLS
At TRA Consulting, we stay on top of the latest Technology trends and security news to help and serve our customers the best we can. Whether you have a big or small office, or are just a home user, we help all our customers achieve peace of mind knowing that their computer and private data is safe from prying eyes. At TRA Consulting we server the Long Beach area, as well as the Southbay, Orange County, and the Greater Los Angeles Area.
SSL Stands for Secure Socket Layer. TLS stands for Transport Layer Security. Most people might not be familiar with this, but if you’ve ever bought something online, you’ve used SSL/TLS. SSL/TLS is used to encrypt websites, such as online stores, email accounts, online banking sites, and government websites. The way that you know if you are in an encrypted website using SSL would be to look at the address bar and notice that the URL (Usually starts with an http://) will now start with an https://. Seeing that was a subconscious sigh of relief in a world full of cyber hacking data breaches. The Heartbleed bug was not a problem in SSL, but in fact, it was in the implementation of it in the OpenSSL Project.
With a bug like this that it completely out of your hands, you might think that there is no way to prevent your computer from being vulnerable, and you might be mostly right. However, there are a few things you can do to neutralize the damage wrought by the heartbleed bug.
First of all, change all of your passwords. If your passwords were compromised, the first thing you should do is to replace them and get new ones. This will neutralize most of the damage the bug could have caused you. Even though the bug has been known for some time, there are still websites out there that haven’t patched it and if you are using them, you are exposing yourself to a security risk. One thing you can do to prevent that is to use the Chrome extension called Chromebleed. It lets you know if the site that you are visiting is still being afflicted by the heartbleed bug.
There are many security risks out there, many that you can prevent, others that are out of your hands. The best way to keep your private data private is to never connect to the internet. But in this day and age that is nearly impossible. Next to that, the best way is taking preventative measures to bolster your computer and network security. At TRA Consulting we pride ourselves in doing just that, helping you keep your data secure. Contact us today.