Microsoft over the weekend admitted to a huge vulnerability in Internet Explorer that allow hackers to set up malicious websites in order to gain complete access to visitors’ PC, provided they visited the page with a IE (version 6 and up). From there, hackers could install apps, break into other accounts and generally use the computer as their own.

In order to protect yourself from the flaw — dubbed “Operation Clandestine Fox” by security firm FireEye — the best thing you can do is stop using Internet Explorer until Microsoft patches it. Other browsers, such as Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, don’t have the problem, and you can export your bookmarks and other settings to those browsers very easily.

If you don’t want to stop using IE, there are ways to ensure you’re not
exposed while browsing the web. Ever since IE10, the browser has offered
an Enhanced Protected Mode (EPM). You won’t be vulnerable to the bug
with EPM enabled, according to FireEye, and it’s listed as one of the workarounds Microsoft recommends on its explainer page. The following video explains how to do it:

You can also disable Adobe Flash. Disabling IE’s Flash plug-in will stop the bug cold, FireEye says — although that will also render your browser powerless to play Flash videos and games.

There are other, more technical ways around the exploit as well. You can install a piece of software called the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) and configure it for Internet Explorer, Microsoft recommends. That will let you browse without altering your web experience much. Be sure to use EMET 4.1 since it’s automatically configured to protect IE.

Separate from Protected Mode, IE has other layers of security, including sliding settings for security zones, which will block malicious software from hijacking your PC if they’re set to high. It will, however, make using some websites (such as order forms) more difficult.

Microsoft is expected to release a patch for the flaw soon — either in the company’s next “Patch Tuesday” update, due May 13, or in an off-schedule patch specifically for this issue. It’s unclear if Windows XP will get the patch; support for the OS officially ended in April, but some large enterprise customers are continuing to get software updates.

 

 

An encryption flaw called the Heartbleed bug is already being called one of the biggest security threats the Internet has ever seen. The bug has affected many popular websites and services — ones you might use every day, like Gmail and Facebook — and could have quietly exposed your sensitive account information (such as passwords and credit card numbers) over the past two years.

But it hasn’t always been clear which sites have been affected. Mashable reached out some of the most popular social, email, banking and commerce sites on the web. We’ve rounded up their responses below.

Some Internet companies that were vulnerable to the bug have already updated their servers with a security patch to fix the issue. This means you’ll need to go in and change your passwords immediately for these sites. Even that is no guarantee that your information wasn’t already compromised, but there’s also no indication that hackers knew about the exploit before this week. The companies that are advising customers to change their passwords are doing so as a precautionary measure.

Although changing your password regularly is always good practice, if a site or service hasn’t yet patched the problem, your information will still be vulnerable.

Also, if you reused the same password on multiple sites, and one of those sites was vulnerable, you’ll need to change the password everywhere. It’s not a good idea to use the same password across multiple sites, anyway.

We’ll keep updating the list as new information comes in. Last update: April 11, 6:14 p.m. ET

Social Networks

	Was it affected?	Is there a patch?	Do you need to change your password?	What did they say?
Facebook	Unclear	Yes	Yes Yes	“We added protections for Facebook’s implementation of OpenSSL before this issue was publicly disclosed. We haven’t detected any signs of suspicious account activity, but we encourage people to … set up a unique password.”
Instagram	Yes	Yes	Yes Yes	“Our security teams worked quickly on a fix and we have no evidence of any accounts being harmed. But because this event impacted many services across the web, we recommend you update your password on Instagram and other sites, particularly if you use the same password on multiple sites.”
LinkedIn	No	No	No	“We didn’t use the offending implementation of OpenSSL in www.linkedin.com or www.slideshare.net. As a result, HeartBleed does not present a risk to these web properties.”
Pinterest	Yes	Yes	Yes Yes	“We fixed the issue on Pinterest.com, and didn’t find any evidence of mischief. To be extra careful, we e-mailed Pinners who may have been impacted, and encouraged them to change their passwords.”
Tumblr	Yes	Yes	Yes Yes	“We have no evidence of any breach and, like most networks, our team took immediate action to fix the issue.”
Twitter	No	Yes	Unclear	Twitter wrote that OpenSSL “is widely used across the internet and at Twitter. We were able to determine that [our] servers were not affected by this vulnerability. We are continuing to monitor the situation.” While reiterating that they were unaffected, Twitter told Mashable that they did apply a patch.

Other Companies

	Was it affected?	Is there a patch?	Do you need to change your password?	What did they say?
Apple	No	No	No	“iOS and OS X never incorporated the vulnerable software and key web-based services were not affected.”
Amazon	No	No	No	“Amazon.com is not affected.”
Google	Yes	Yes	Yes Yes*	“We have assessed the SSL vulnerability and applied patches to key Google services.” Search, Gmail, YouTube, Wallet, Play, Apps and App Engine were affected; Google Chrome and Chrome OS were not.*Google said users do not need to change their passwords, but because of the previous vulnerability, better safe than sorry.
Microsoft	No	No	No	Microsoft services were not running OpenSSL, according to LastPass.
Yahoo	Yes	Yes	Yes Yes	“As soon as we became aware of the issue, we began working to fix it… and we are working to implement the fix across the rest of our sites right now.” Yahoo Homepage, Yahoo Search, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Food, Yahoo Tech, Flickr and Tumblr were patched. More patches to come, Yahoo says.

Email

	Was it affected?	Is there a patch?	Do you need to change your password?	What did they say?
AOL	No	No	No	AOL told Mashable it was not running the vulnerable version of the software.
Gmail	Yes	Yes	Yes Yes*	“We have assessed the SSL vulnerability and applied patches to key Google services.”*Google said users do not need to change their passwords, but because of the previous vulnerability, better safe than sorry.
Hotmail / Outlook	No	No	No	Microsoft services were not running OpenSSL, according to LastPass.
Yahoo Mail	Yes	Yes	Yes Yes	“As soon as we became aware of the issue, we began working to fix it… and we are working to implement the fix across the rest of our sites right now.”

Stores and Commerce

	Was it affected?	Is there a patch?	Do you need to change your password?	What did they say?
Amazon	No	No	No	“Amazon.com is not affected.”
Amazon Web Services (for website operators)	Yes	Yes	Yes Yes	Most services were unaffected or Amazon was already able to apply mitigations (see advisory note here). Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon EC2, Amazon Linux AMI, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu, AWS OpsWorks, AWS Elastic Beanstalk and Amazon CloudFront were patched.
eBay	No	No	No	“eBay.com was never vulnerable to this bug because we were never running a vulnerable version of OpenSSL.”
Etsy	Yes*	Yes	Yes Yes	Etsy said that only a small part of its infrastructure was vulnerable, and they have patched it.
GoDaddy	Yes	Yes	Yes Yes	“We’ve been updating GoDaddy services that use the affected OpenSSL version.” Full Statement
Groupon	No	No	No	“Groupon.com does not utilize a version of the OpenSSL library that is susceptible to the Heartbleed bug.”
Nordstrom	No	No	No	“Nordstrom websites do not use OpenSSL encryption.”
PayPal	No	No	No	“Your PayPal account details were not exposed in the past and remain secure.” Full Statement
Target	No	No	No	“[We] launched a comprehensive review of all external facing aspects of Target.com… and do not currently believe that any external-facing aspects of our sites are impacted by the OpenSSL vulnerability.”
Walmart	No	No	No	“We do not use that technology so we have not been impacted by this particular breach.”

Videos, Photos, Games & Entertainment

	Was it affected?	Is there a patch?	Do you need to change your password?	What did they say?
Flickr	Yes	Yes	Yes Yes	“As soon as we became aware of the issue, we began working to fix it… and we are working to implement the fix across the rest of our sites right now.”
Hulu	No	No	No	No comment provided.
Minecraft	Yes	Yes	Yes Yes	“We were forced to temporary suspend all of our services. … The exploit has been fixed. We can not guarantee that your information wasn’t compromised.” More Information
Netflix	Yes	Yes	Yes Yes	“Like many companies, we took immediate action to assess the vulnerability and address it. We are not aware of any customer impact. It’s a good practice to change passwords from time to time, now would be a good time to think about doing so. “
SoundCloud	Yes	Yes	Yes Yes	SoundCloud emphasized that there were no indications of any foul play and that the company’s actions were simply precautionary.
YouTube	Yes	Yes	Yes Yes*	“We have assessed the SSL vulnerability and applied patches to key Google services.”*Google said users do not need to change their passwords, but because of the previous vulnerability, better safe than sorry.

Banks and Brokerages

All the banks we contacted (see below) said they were unaffected by Heartbleed, but U.S. regulators have warned banks to patch their systems.

	Was it affected?	Is there a patch?	Do you need to change your password?	What did they say?
Bank of America	No	No	No	“A majority of our platforms do NOT use OpenSSL, and the ones that do, we have confirmed no vulnerabilities.”
Barclays	No	No	No	No comment provided.
Capital One	No	No	No	“Capital One uses a version of encryption that is not vulnerable to Heartbleed.”
Chase	No	No	No	“These sites don’t use the encryption software that is vulnerable to the Heartbleed bug.”
Citigroup	No	No	No	Citigroup does not use Open SSL in “customer-facing retail banking and credit card sites and mobile apps”
E*Trade	No	No	No	E*Trade is still investigating.
Fidelity	No	No	No	“We have multiple layers of security in place to protect our customer sites and services.”
PNC	No	No	No	“We have tested our online and mobile banking systems and confirmed that they are not vulnerable to the Heartbleed bug.”
Schwab	No	No	No	“Efforts to date have not detected this vulnerability on Schwab.com or any of our online channels.”
Scottrade	No	No	No	“Scottrade does not use the affected version of OpenSSL on any of our client-facing platforms.”
TD Ameritrade	No	No	No	TD Ameritrade “doesn’t use the versions of openSSL that were vulnerable.”
TD Bank	No	No	No	“We’re currently taking precautions and steps to protect customer data from this threat and have no reason to believe any customer data has been compromised in the past.”
T. Rowe Price	No	No	No	“The T. Rowe Price websites are not vulnerable to the “Heartbleed” SSL bug nor were they vulnerable in the past.”
U.S. Bank	No	No	No	“We do not use OpenSSL for customer-facing, Internet banking channels, so U.S. Bank customer data is NOT at risk.”
Vanguard	No	No	No	“We are not using, and have not used, the vulnerable version of OpenSSL.”
Wells Fargo	No	No	No	No reason provided.

Government and Taxes

	Was it affected?	Is there a patch?	Do you need to change your password?	What did they say?
1040.com	No	No	No	“We’re not vulnerable to the Heartbleed bug, as we do not use OpenSSL.”
FileYour Taxes.com	No	No	No	“We continuously patch our servers to keep them updated. However, the version we use was not affected by the issue, so no action was taken.”
H&R Block	No	No	No	“We are reviewing our systems and currently have found no risk to client data from this issue.”
Healthcare .gov	No	No	No	“Healthcare.gov consumer accounts are not affected by this vulnerability.”
Intuit (TurboTax)	No	No	No	Turbotax wrote that “engineers have verified TurboTax is not affected by Heartbleed.” The company has issued new certificates anyway, and said it’s not “proactively advising” users to change their passwords.
IRS	No	No	No	“The IRS continues to accept tax returns as normal … and systems continue operating and are not affected by this bug. We are not aware of any security vulnerabilities related to this situation.”
TaxACT	No	No	No	“Customers can update their passwords at any time, although we are not proactively advising them to do so at this time.”
USAA	Yes	Yes	Yes Yes	USAA said that it has “already taken measures to help prevent a data breach and implemented a patch earlier this week.”

Other

	Was it affected?	Is there a patch?	Do you need to change your password?	What did they say?
Box	Yes	Yes	Yes Yes	“We’re currently working with our customers to proactively reset passwords and are also reissuing new SSL certificates for added protection.”
Dropbox	Yes	Yes	Yes Yes	On Twitter: “We’ve patched all of our user-facing services & will continue to work to make sure your stuff is always safe.”
Evernote	No	No	No	“Evernote’s service, Evernote apps, and Evernote websites … all use non-OpenSSL implementations of SSL/TLS to encrypt network communications.” Full Statement
GitHub	Yes	Yes	Yes Yes	GitHub said it has patched all its systems, deployed new SSL certificates and revoked old ones. GitHub is asking all users to change password, enable two-factor authentication and “revoke and recreate personal access and application tokens.”
IFTTT	Yes	Yes	Yes Yes	IFTTT emailed all its users and logged them out, prompting them to change their password on the site.
OKCupid	Yes	Yes	Yes Yes	“We, like most of the Internet, were stunned that such a serious bug has existed for so long and was so widespread.”
Spark Networks (JDate, Christian Mingle)	No	No	No	Sites do not use OpenSSL.
SpiderOak	Yes	Yes	No	Spideroak said it patched its servers, but the desktop client doesn’t use a vulnerable version of OpenSSL, so “customers do not need to take any special action.”
WordPress	Unclear	Unclear	Unclear	WordPress tweeted that it has taken “immediate steps” and “addressed the Heartbleed OpenSSL exploit,” but it’s unclear if the issue is completely solder. When someone asked Matt Mullenweg, WordPress’ founding developer, when the site’s SSL certificates will be replaced and when users will be able to reset passwords, he simply answered: “soon.”
Wunderlist	Yes	Yes	Yes Yes	“You’ll have to simply log back into Wunderlist. We also strongly recommend that you reset your password for Wunderlist.” Full Statement

Password Managers

	Was it affected?	Is there a patch?	Do you need to change your password?	What did they say?
1Password	No	No	No	1Password said in a blog post that its technology “is not built upon SSL/TLS in general, and not upon OpenSSL in particular.” So users don’t need to change their master password.
Dashlane	Yes	Yes	No	Dashlane said in a blog post users’ accounts were not impacted and the master password is safe as it is never transmitted. The site does use OpenSSL when syncing data with its servers but Dashlane said it has patched the bug, issued new SSL certificates and revoked previous ones.
LastPass	Yes	Yes	No	“Though LastPass employs OpenSSL, we have multiple layers of encryption to protect our users and never have access to those encryption keys.” Users don’t need to change their master passwords because they’re never sent to the server. But passwords for other sites stored in LastPass might need to be changed.

Reporters who contributed to this story include Samantha Murphy Kelly, Lorenzo Francheschi-Bicchierai, Seth Fiegerman, Adario Strange and Kurt Wagner.