VerifyInvestor.com - Heartbleed Bug Squashed

Some of you may have heard of the Heartbleed bug.  Experts say that it affects most of the internet.  Chances are that it directly or indirectly impacts you because millions of websites, many of which you may use  (for example, USPS, Instagram, ESPN, Yahoo, Facebook, Yelp, Gmail, Dropbox, Flickr, Intuit Turbo Tax, YouTube, Go Daddy, Pinterest, etc.) were susceptible.  Even networking devices such as mobile smartphones, network routers, and internet-capable blue-ray players are susceptible as well. 

Heartbleed is NOT a virus.  It is a vulnerability in OpenSSL, an open source service that runs commonly on Linux servers responsible for SSL authentication. SSL is the process of encrypting sensitive information transferred between a website and your computer, and is generally validated through a 3rd party certificate authority such as VeriSign, GeoTrust or Comodo.  Basically, it is a bug that affects the internet and not your computer so your desktop anti-virus software and malware scanners won't fix the bug.  To learn more about Heartbleed, visit: http://heartbleed.com/ or just type “Heartbleed” into an internet search.

VerifyInvestor.com is committed to security and the protection of our users’ information.  When we first learned about the Heartbleed bug, we waited to receive confirmation from our technology partners that they were either not affected by the bug or that they had already patched their systems.  We then immediately patched our systems.  We patched our systems before most other sites had provided fixes or even finished internal reviews of their site vulnerability.  To our knowledge, none of the information belonging to our users was compromised as a result of the Heartbleed bug. 

Nevertheless, we do recommend that all users on our system change their passwords, especially if those passwords were used on other websites.  To change your password, simply log into your account, click on your name and select the “Settings” from the drop down menu.  When selecting a new password, please refrain from using a password that you used or plan to use on another site, especially if that site is susceptible to the Heartbleed bug.

To learn more about how VerifyInvestor.com protects user information, visit our Support/FAQ page located at: http://www.verifyinvestor.com.  If you have any further questions about VerifyInvestor.com's security, please do not hesitate to contact us.