Password Rules and Recommendations

Your Dartmouth password must conform to certain rules in order to be accepted as a valid password. If your current password does not conform to these rules, you should change it to one that does.

• Rules
• Examples

Rules

Password must meet the following criteria:

• Exactly 8 characters
• Must contain at least one of the following special characters !#$%^*_
• Special characters can only be in positions 2 through 6 of your password
• The first character in the password can NOT be a number

Examples 

• Acceptable password construct: apple$go or a$pplego (note location of the special character $)
• Unacceptable password construct: applego$ or appleg$o (note use of special character but in wrong position) or apple2go (note lack of special character)

The use of a special character in any place other than the last two positions creates a strong password that is difficult to crack (in excess of 30 days of computer time to crack a single password). Likewise, passwords constructed in this manner are difficult to guess (but tough to remember), especially if you select random letters and numbers. The best choice is to pick two words or abbreviations that have nothing in common and join them with one of the special characters. For example, shoe%lye (the words "shoe" and "lye" are totally unrelated, thus hard to guess, but easy for you to remember).

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REMEMBER! If your browser saves your history and passwords, clear your cache and update/clear saved passwords in your browser's preferences/history windows. 

If you have any questions, please contact the IT Service Desk (Help Desk) at 646-2999, send e-mail to help@dartmouth.edu, or call your department's IT support office.