Gadgetory

on the internet things are not always as secure as they seem I'm Bridget Carey and this is your cnet update folks we have to have a talk about heartbleed it's a cool sounding name given to a serious security flaw that many major websites are scrambling to fix including Amazon Yahoo and google and it means we will have to refresh our passwords for many websites explaining heartbleed can get pretty technical but here's a simple way to think about it when you're on a web site entering in your secure information like a password or credit card info there's a little padlock icon near the URL to let you know the website is encrypted and your data is private well there's this open source system that many sites have been using for encryption it's called open SSL and it had a leak someone could trick a server into sharing the encrypted data and even share the keys to unlock the encryption it's believed that about two-thirds of websites were vulnerable to this flawed security system and what's worse is that the problem has existed for the past two years and security experts had no idea if someone has been taking advantage of this bug to steal info it leaves no trace there are no fingerprints left behind so websites don't even know if they were compromised that's comforting so what can you do I mean besides get angry at the Internet well the smart thing to do is to wait for websites to announce that they have patched the problem then you can change your password big sites like yahoo and google have fixed the issue but not all smaller sites may have plugged the leak just yet also keep a close eye on your banking statements for any fraudulent activity which you should always do anyway let's move on to a different kind of privacy facebook privacy the social network has admitted that sometimes it's privacy settings can be confusing so it's making some changes if you haven't touched your privacy settings in a while you'll get a pop up with a little dinosaur asking you to double check your settings in case you didn't realize you've been making all your post public and on the facebook iOS app you may have noticed that the audience selector which was on the lower right corner is now clearly visible on the top of your status forum Facebook will also add more descriptions to what public means on the desktop drop-down menu and as more of us watched video online and cut the cable subscription there's another streaming video option making its debut Sesame Street go offers on-demand access to hundreds of full-length episodes of the classic children's program and it can be accessed on any device at Sesame go calm Sesame Street go is brought to you by the number four because it'll cost you four dollars a month that's your tech news update head to cnet.com for more details on these stories from our studios in New York I'm virtue carry