When Target had their security breach effecting credit and debit cards you would have thought the world was coming to an end. Every news channel carried the story, new credit and debit cards were being issued, and people became afraid to shop at Target out of fear their identity would be stolen. On top of that when other places were hacked there were the same stories, especially the ones where we should change our passwords because Yahoo/Google/Adobe (that PDF viewer thing we all use)/LinkedIn were affected, and the world was coming to an end.
Now, though, when a hack that actually seems to be the mother of all hacks, the Heartbleed Bug, affecting nearly every website that used secure connections, it’s almost like no one seems to care. I heard a quick blurb on a news station when it was first announced and said to myself, “Self, that’s pretty bad,” but it was buried about five stories down into the news. A few days later the major news outlets started reporting it, but it was kind of the same “Yea, something was hacked, you should change your passwords” story, but nowhere with the “internet world is coming to an end” immediacy of other hacks.
I’m blaming the name of the bug: “The Heartbleed Bug.” Why? No one can relate. We know Yahoo. We know Google. We know Target. But what the hell is “Heartbleed?” For what is actually a hack that should entice people to change their passwords a little more diligently than the others, no one except for geeks can identity.
I’m not sure what a better name might have been to get people to care, or maybe we’ve just gotten so used to the “Change the passwords” stories we don’t care anymore, but I’m wondering: Have you changed your passwords since news of the Heartbleed Bug came out?
That’s it for this one! L8R!!