Dashlane: Security Still a Problem for Many Websites After Heartbleed

Dashlane, a company that provides a digital wallet and password manager, reported many of the world’s most popular websites left consumer data exposed after the Heartbleed security vulnerability was discovered last month.

Several of the world’s most popular websites did not implement even the bare minimum standard security practices after the Heartbleed vulnerability was reported, according to the new Dashlane Security Roundup.

Apple (AAPL) was the only company to receive a perfect security score from Dashlane.

Antivirus software providers Kaspersky Lab, McAfee (MFE) and Norton earned positive marks, while AVG (AVG), Avira and Bitdefender received negative scores, Dashlane said.

Other Dashlane findings included:

“Our study found a clear and direct correlation between a website’s password requirements and the average strength of a user’s password. Sites that require more complex passwords have users with greater password strength. Passwords are the first line of defense in protecting private personal and financial information on the Web, and weak password requirements end up leaving all of us more exposed,” Dashlane CEO Emmanuel Schalit said in a prepared statement.

Dashlane said users’ password strength correlated to a website’s security score, and “tougher password requirements meant stronger and more secure passwords.”

The company offered the following recommendations for websites that want to improve their password security policies:

Dashlane evaluated over 80 of the Web’s most popular sites in the security roundup, and the full study results are available here.

Share your thoughts about this story in the Comments section below, via Twitter @dkobialka or email me at [email protected].