Michigan Tech ISO Password Criteria

Why is a good password so important?

The use of a hard-to-guess, private password protects not only your on-line data and information, but also the systems and electronic resources in your department and University. Once an unauthorized person gains access to a computer account, he or she can break into administrator accounts more easily and compromise entire servers. Please remember the following:

• Set your initial password according to the guidelines below.
• Keep your password private. Never share it with anyone.
• Change your password every six months.
• Change your password if you think it may be known by someone else.

Remember, access to the network is what people may be after, not access to your files.

MTU Password Rules

Your password must:

• be at least 6 characters long
• be non-trivial (e.g., not your userid or common words)
• contain at least one alphanumeric character (a..z, A..Z, 0..9)
• contain at least one non-alphanumeric character (+_-=,.!@#%^&*)
• not contain spaces, tabs, or other "whitespace"

Guidelines for choosing a good password

Passwords should not be words, in any language, or combinations of words. It is easy for someone to try every word in any dictionary (English or other) in an attempt to guess your password. Good passwords contain non-letter characters like *, #, %, !, and @ as well as different case letters. Good passwords are easy for you to remember and hard for other people to guess.

One successful method is to use the first letters of a word that you'll remember with non-letter characters mixed in. For example, "It is raining cats and dogs in Phoenix" could be used as a password, replacing the "and" with & and capitalizing every noun: IirC&DiP. This eight-character password contains letters of different case as well as non-letter characters. It is not a word in any language and should be easy for you to remember and hard for others to guess.

Examples of insecure passwords

Insecure passwords are things that others can easily guess or find out. Words found in foreign or English dictonaries, keyboard patterns (like QWERTY), your social security number, the name of your hometown, variations on common words (combining two words, spelling words backwards), your username, etc. are all bad choices as they can easily be guessed or discovered with a password cracking program.

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