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Security Alert: Information on Heartbleed

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heartbleed.fwYou’ve likely heard of Heartbleed over the past week. We wanted to share a bit about what it is, steps we have taken to protect our customers and steps you can take to protect yourself across the Web.

Some versions of Norton AntiVirus, Norton Internet Security and Norton 360 were impacted. On April 10th, we distributed updates to these impacted products to stop and block Heartbleed. Norton Accounts used to sign into Norton.com were not impacted. Please refer to our FAQ for more information on how we’re defending against this vulnerability.

Why Heartbleed affects everyone on the Internet

Heartbleed is a bug in some versions of OpenSSL, a set of software tools used widely across the Web for security. This bug may reveal your name, passwords and other private information.

If you visited a website that uses a vulnerable version of OpenSSL during the last two years, your personal information may be compromised. You can use this tool: http://safeweb.norton.com/heartbleed to check if a particular website is currently impacted.

How to protect yourself

Due of the complex nature of this vulnerability, changing your passwords before sites update their version of OpenSSL won’t fully protect you. Here are some simple steps you can take as a precaution:

Change your passwords on any website that contains sensitive information about you. You should first confirm that the site does not contain the Heartbleed vulnerability by using this tool.
If you’ve reused passwords on multiple sites, it’s especially important to change them. To change your Norton Account password, visitmanage.norton.com and click Account Information.
Beware of phishing emails and type website addresses directly in your browser instead of clicking on a link through an email.
Monitor your bank and credit card accounts for unusual activity.

It may take an extended period of time for all the sites affected by Heartbleed to fix this vulnerability. To determine if a website is vulnerable to Heartbleed using this tool. We recommend you only exchange personal or sensitive information such as your credit card number if the site is not affected by Heartbleed.

You can learn more about Heartbleed and its impact to consumers by checking out our FAQ or by following the Norton Protection Blog.

Stay Safe Online

–  Informational update provided by Norton 4/18/14

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