What makes a good password?
Your new password must meet the following criteria: • It must be at least 10 characters long • It must contain three of the following four items: • UPPERCASE letters • Lowercase letters • Numbers • Special characters (such as ! or $) • It cannot contain any part of your name (first or last), or your student ID. • You cannot repeat a password that you have previously used in the last 8 changes. Some examples of good passwords are: • “join us on our trip 2 Security!” • “weCanDoThisIfWeTry9” • “live2LEARN!” Other restrictions: You cannot repeat a password you have used in your last eight changes.
Choose something that you’ll remember, so you don’t have to write it down. For the Members Shop, it has to be at least six characters long, and can be made up of letters, numbers or punctuation marks. (We’ve found using a combination makes it more difficult for someone to guess.) It is case sensitive though, so if you use any capital letters you’ll need to type it in exactly the same way every time. If you choose a password that could easily be guessed, like your name, we’ll ask you to choose something more secure. Ideas for creating a password Take a saying familiar to you and use the first letters of the words. For example, ‘my dog digs holes in the garden’ becomes ‘mddhitg’. For extra security add in numbers or punctuation marks, e.g. ‘md!dh2itg’. Choose two short words and link them with a punctuation mark, for example, ‘wot?isit’. Mis-spelling words in a password also helps make it harder to guess.
