Everyone takes their passwords very seriously. People tend to get a little nervous about other people even using their computer because they want to keep their emails and other messages private. Nearly anything can be done on your computer. You can check your bank account, shop and pay bills. The very way we see Internet security may change, however.

According to those who found the bug, Codenomicon Defensics, the Heartbleed Bug is a serious vulnerability in the popular OpenSSL cryptographic software library. This weakness allows stealing the information protected, under normal conditions, by the SSL/TLS encryption used to secure the Internet. SSL/TLS provides communication security and privacy over the Internet for applications such as web, email, instant messaging [IM] and some virtual private networks [VPNs]. This could mean that the Internet that we have learned to love and trust is not so trustworthy after all.

Everyday we use encryption technology when we are on the Internet. There are passwords or a series of questions to almost everything online and we have come to believe that we are the only people in the world who know the answers to these questions. It seems that in some cases, we have been wrong. We might get amused or slightly mad when someone gets on our Facebook accounts and gives a funny status, but now there is proof that much more malicious hackers could have potentially gotten to more significant things, such as bank account information, through the Heartbleed bug.

When an attack happens, as much as 64 kilobytes can be hacked at one time. This also leaves your accounts more vulnerable to be attacked multiple times. According to The Washington Post, a group of skilled hackers were asked to get into the Heartbleed system and try to seek out information. It took as little as two hours for information from multiple individuals to be compromised.

In a world where people are becoming more and more reliant on the Internet, it is scary to think that the websites we thought were secure are really not. It is like having your identity stolen on a macro level. As students, it is important that we start taking precautions to protect ourselves. Although the Heartbleed bug has been compromising information for nearly two years under the radar, it is never too late to try to protect yourself.

Of course, we should not all try to reset our passwords at once. If you are worrying about whether or not your system has been breached, contact your Internet provider or start changing passwords at a slower rate. The Heartbleed bug does not mean the end of the Internet. It should simply mean that people need to be more careful about what kind of information they put out there. Worry about your most important passwords, like those used for your bank and places that may have your credit card information, rather than whether someone hacked your Facebook or Twitter accounts.

It is also important to remember that not every single system has been compromised. The Internet has never been considered a safe place, and as college students, we should all know that. We should know that anything we put on the Internet could potentially be seen. This is not a warning to tell people that the Internet is bad and we should stay off of it forever. But sometimes we all need to be reminded that we cannot always trust the Internet with our most important information.