The following is a public service announcement from your local neighborhood network security engineer.

Never, ever, re-use passwords across multiple services. If you use the same password at your bank that you do anywhere else, once that password is compromised all the associated services will be compromised.

Some vulnerabilities can be mitigated by using strong passwords. A strong password is at least 12 characters long, contains at least one of each type of character (upper and lower case letters, digits and symbols), and makes no word in English or any other language. I use a secure password database and randomly generated complex passwords. If you must come up with a memorable strong password, create a sentence such as: "Doug Ritter runs the best forum on the Internet, especially for a knife guy." That sentence could be the mnemonic for a password like "DRrt^f0tI,efakg"

Other vulnerabilities, such as Heartbleed, cannot be mitigated by using strong passwords. That's why it's so important to use different passwords everywhere.

One more thing about Heartbleed. If you run a service affected by it, replace your SSL certs and keys after patching the vulnerability. If a service you use is affected by it, change your passwords after the service you use patches the vulnerability.