Regent University - Christian Leadership to Change the World

In simplest terms, Password Security is the process of choosing a difficult to guess password, then keeping it a secret. Since your password/s are the primary protection mechanism for your accounts, a poorly chosen (weak) password may result in compromise of personal user information and possibly confidential Regent University information. As such, all Regent University faculty, staff, and students (including visitors, contractors, and vendors with access to Regent University systems) are responsible for taking appropriate measures to select and secure their passwords.

Attackers can use programs to compromise easily guessed passwords. When an attacker has access to your accounts, then he/she may inherit access to your private information and/or confidential Regent University information. Because of this, the IT department has adopted more strenuous password complexity requriements. Your new password will make it more difficult for an attacker to compromise your accounts. Remember, your password can be super difficult to guess, but if you share it with anyone, you've already compromised your accounts. So choose a difficult to guess password, then keep it a secret.

At Regent, we now have a few new requirements to make sure that our users create what we call 'Strong Passwords'. These are passwords that an imposter could not easily guess. Your new password must:

Be at least eight characters in length
Include one number, one uppercase letter, and one lowercase letter (within the first eight characters)
Must NOT include special characters (!@#$%%^&, etc.)
Must NOT be a password used within the past 270 days

To create such a password, try to utilize phrases instead of words. In this way, you can control what your password is without having some random string of characters that is difficult to remember. Take the following example for instance.

Phrase: "Regent University, Christian Leadership to Change the World."

We could certainly break this phrase up into many different usable passwords or use the whole phrase if we so choose. For this example, let's just take the first letter from each word and make a password from it (don't forget the complexity requirements).

r    U    c    L    2    c    t    W

Great! It meets all of our requirements. Now pick a phrase for yourself. Maybe a Bible verse, famous quote, or anything you like. Remember, don't use words or phrases that others may think you will use. Don't make it easy for someone to guess your password! If you need more examples, click here.

So, you're ready to change your password? Our password change process will check each new password to make sure that it meets our new requirements. If it doesn't, you'll have to try again. To help reduce the chances of getting rejected, make sure that you've satisfied the following checklist.

Understand why passwords and secrecy are important
Understand which kinds of characters your password MUST include
Understand which kinds of characters your password must NOT include
Have chosen a good phrase to base your password on
Make sure your password meets the complexity requirements

If you are ready to change your password, click here to start our three-step process.