This is a quick note about the “Heartbleed” security vulnerability that’s been in the news this week. There’s a lot of info on the news about it, but in short, it affects the underlying mechanism (OpenSSL) many systems use to encrypt communications.
Yes, Goddard College uses OpenSSL, and yes, we immediately moved to close the vulnerability in our systems as soon as it was made public, last Monday. We have checked with our outside vendors (most notably Google) and they have confirmed either no risk or they have closed vulnerabilities also.
Yes, it’s always a good idea to change your passwords often, and to make sure you use different passwords for different systems (e.g. Goddard systems versus your personal banking login). Though there is no evidence that any account has been compromised or personal information accessed via this vulnerability, because the potential has existed for so long undetected, it’s better to be safe.
You can update your passwords across all Goddard’s systems at http://activate.goddard.edu
Please let us know if you have any questions by contacting it@goddard.edu
