Password Security
In accordance with current computer security best practices, we have established the following requirements for student, staff, and faculty passwords:
- Passwords must be at least fourteen characters long.
- You cannot reuse your previous password.
Walters State recommends using passphrases. A passphrase is a sequence of words combined to make a short phrase such as "CorrectHorseBatteryStaple" and used as a password. It should be long enough to be hard to guess; not a famous quotation from literature, religious texts, or pop culture; hard to guess by intuition — even by someone who knows the user well; and easy to remember and type accurately.
Rejected Passwords
In addition, Walters State checks potential passwords against public lists of passwords that are known to have been compromised from other companies along with lists of passwords known to be circulated among hackers in attempts to break into accounts. Using these passwords increase the risk that someone could guess your account login and act as you.
Walters State will deny the use of a password if the risk of that password is determined to be too high.
Password Warning
In addition, we will warn against the use of passwords if we feel they pose an increased risk, but not enough risk to deny the password completely. Understand that using one of these passwords increases the risk of the password being guessed and we recommend you use a different password. You are ultimately responsible for activity done under you account and using one of these passwords increases the chance of someone gaining unauthorized access to your account.