October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month
This is the perfect time to change passwords that don’t meet UCSC’s Password Standards.
Passwords are an important part of computer security at UCSC. They often serve as the first line of defense in preventing unauthorized access to campus computers and data. Because of this, it is important to choose passwords that are complex and cryptic enough to prevent others from guessing them or from cracking them with “password cracker” programs. At the same time, it is also important to keep passwords secret and secure so others can’t use them or find them.
- Passwords should be at least 8 characters long and use at least 3 of the following types of characters: upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers and special characters (e.g. !@#$%^&*()_+|~-=\‘{}[]:";’<>?,./)
- Less complex passwords should be longer
- Passwords shouldn't be a dictionary word whether spelled forwards or backwards, or a word preceded or followed by a digit (e.g., password1, 1password), your username, child's name, pet's name, birthdays, abc123, password1, or anything else easily guessable.
- A phrase that is familiar to you might be a useful device to help you generate a password that is memorable to you, but obscure to others. For example, "The hills are alive with the sound of music!" is actually a pretty good password, except for the fact that that it is inconveniently long and published here. A shorter version using a variant on the first letter of each word could be, "ThRawts0m!"
Last but not least, keep your passwords secret. Don’t share them with anyone else. ITS will never ask you for your password. Neither should any reputable service provider.
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Additional Information:
UCSC's Password Standards: http://its.ucsc.edu/policies/password.html
Change your CruzID passwords: https://cruzid.ucsc.edu
Additional cyber security information is available on ITS’ security web site: http://its.ucsc.edu/security/. Check out the links under “How to Stay Secure.”
For questions or assistance, contact the ITS Support Center: itrequest.ucsc.edu, help@ucsc.edu, 459-HELP, 54 Kerr Hall.
