Murray State University: Help Desk

Password Change FAQ

    1. Does this affect me?
      • Anyone that has an account that they use to log onto the Murray State University computers will be affected by this change.
    2. When does the change go into effect?
      • July 18th 2007
    3. Why are we making this change?
      • This change is being made to increase the security of our user accounts.  As the technologies used to guess passwords increase in effectiveness, our passwords have to increase in complexity.
    4. What are the rules for creating a good password?
      1. We are implementing a password requirement of:
        • A minimum of 8 characters long.
          • “Eight Characters Long” means your password has to be at least  XXXXXXXX characters long.
      2. Complexity requirement
        1. “Complexity Requirement” means your password will have to contain characters from three of the following four categories:
          1. English uppercase characters (A through Z)
          2. English lowercase characters (a through z)
          3. Base 10 digits (0 through 9)
          4. Non-alphanumeric characters such as punctuation or other special characters. (e.g.  !, $, #, %)
      3. A password history of 4 passwords
        1. “Password history” The computer system keeps a record of your last four passwords. The password you chose cannot be one of your four previous passwords.
      4. Your password must be changed every 90 days.
        1. The computer system will prompt you when you are 14 days away from needing to change your password.  If you do not change your password within the 90 day period. The account will be disabled until you change your password.
      5. Bad Password Examples for user john.doe
        • John1234 - Your password cannot contain any part of your username.
        • msu00001, msu00002, msu00003 – Your password cannot increment when you are required to change it every 90 days.
        • abcdefgh – all characters are lower case, must include characters from the other categories
      6. Good Password Examples (please do not use these as your password)
        • Murr@y07
        • MyC@t&M3
        • MyD0g&u2