- I know my password and I want to change it.
- I don’t know my password:
- Do not ever share your password with anyone, and do not send your password via email anyone (including any ACCC and other campus units).
- Do not use personal information in your password that someone else is likely to be able to figure out. Obviously, things like your name, phone number, and address are to be avoided. Even names of acquaintances and the like should be avoided.
- Do not use words, geographical names, or biographical names that are listed in standard dictionaries.
- Never use a password that is the same as your account name.
- Do not use passwords that are easy to spot while you’re typing them in. Avoid passwords like 12345, qwerty (i.e., all keys right next to each other), and nnnnnn.
Try This Trick
If you are having difficulty picking a good password, one good method is to use the first letter of each word in a phrase you can easily remember. For example, “McDonald’s is your kind of place” is miykop. That will need some modification because you need an uppercase letter and a number too and it’s not long enough, so how about: M’5iykop
Another method is to intentionally use misspelled words, or words with a number or punctuation mark suffixed. For example: Co77ege.
(Since the password has to be at least 8 characters long, the period on the end is part of the password.)
Don’t use these examples!
These are too easy to guess. Don’t use them. (The dictionary check should take care of most of them, but even if it doesn’t, please don’t try.)
- Your name
- Your spouse’s name
- Your parent’s name
- Your pet’s name
- Your child’s name
- Names of close friends or coworkers
- Names of your favorite fantasy characters
- Your boss’s name
- Anybody’s name
- The name of the operating system you’re using
- The hostname of your computer
- Your phone number
- Your license plate number
- Any part of your social security number
- Anybody’s birth date
- Other information that is easily obtained about you
- Words such as wizard, guru, gandalf, and so on.
- Any username on the computer in any form (as is, capitalized, etc.)
- A word in the English dictionary
- A place
- A proper noun
- Passwords of all the same letter
- Simple patterns on the keyboard, like qwerty
- Any of the above spelled backwards
- Any of the above preceded or followed by one or two digits