NSU requires that faculty, staff and students change their network/email password every six months.

The password requirements that will be enforced are as follows:

1. Be a minimum of 8 characters in length

2. Contain 3 of the following 4 characters

   1. Number (0-9)

   2. Lowercase letter (a-z)

   3. Uppercase letter (A-Z)

   4. Special Character (for example: !, @, #, $, %)

3. Can not use the previous two passwords

4. Minimum password age is 2 days (this means once you have changed your password, you cannot change it again for 2 days)

5. Maximum password age is 183 days (you will be prompted to change your password every 6 months)

6. Password cannot include your username

7. If you incorrectly enter your password more than 10 times in 30 minutes your account will be locked out. You will need to wait 30 minutes for your account to become unlocked or contact the Help Desk at 626-2283 to have your account unlocked.

Recommendations for Passwords

1. Poor, weak passwords have the following characteristics:

   1. Password contains less than 8 characters.

   2. Password is a word found in a dictionary (English or foreign).

   3. Password is a common usage word such as:
      • Names of family, pets, friends, co-workers, fantasy characters, etc.
      • Computer terms and names, commands, sites, companies, hardware, software
      • The words “NSU, “sanfran”, “sanjose” or any derivation.
      • Birthdays and other personal information such as addresses and phone numbers
      • Word or number patterns like aaabbb, qwerty, zyxwvuts, 123321, etc.
      • Any of the above spelled backwards
      • Any of the above preceded or followed by a digit (e.g., secret1, 1secret)
2. Strong passwords have the following characteristics:
   1. Contain both upper and lower case characters (e.g., a-z, A-Z)
   2. Have digits and punctuation characters as well as letters (e.g., 0-9, !@#$%^&*()_+<>?)
   3. Are at least eight alphanumeric characters long
   4. Are not a word in any language, slang, dialect, jargon, etc.
   5. Are not based on personal information, names of family, etc.
   6. Passwords should never be written down or stored on-line.  Try to create passwords that can be easily remembered.  One way to do this is create a password based on a song title, affirmation, or other phrase.  For example, the phrase might be:  “This May Be One Way To Remember” and the password could be: “TmB1w2R!” or Tmb1w>r~” or some other variation.