The Bonnyville Nouvelle and Great West Newspapers would like all our users to please take note of this alert.
As many of you may have heard, an online computer security threat referred to as the "Heartbleed" bug is circulating across North America and the world. According to tech websites such as C/NET, the bug can scrape a server's memory, where sensitive user data is stored, including private data such as usernames, passwords, and credit card numbers.
The "Heartbleed" bug is said to have been circulating for about two years, and appears to be "state sponsored," meaning it was developed or released, or both, by a government.
None of the services that the Bonnyville Nouvelle or Great West Newspapers provide to the public are affected by this issue. However, the Bonnyville Nouvelle and Great West Newspapers does use the third party vendor DISQUS for our website commenting system. If you have an account on DISQUS, the password for this account should be changed, just to ensure "Heartbleed" can't affect it.
Other common accounts affected by this threat include Dropbox, Facebook, Google (which includes YouTube), Instagram and Netflix.
