Passwords - oh passwords!

 We just recently sent this message to our staff: 

Greetings!

In our continuing efforts to create a more technology secure environment, we are going to begin to enforce the following rules for STAFF passwords in Google.

All passwords must be a minimum length of 12 characters. We recommend passwords that are passphrases, for example “ilovechipsandsalsa”. While we are enforcing a password length requirement, at this time we are not requiring complexity through special characters, or symbols, or upper case letters.

All staff will be required to create a new password every 180 days.

We will begin enforcing these policies on Wednesday November 16th. When you log into your Google account, you will be prompted to update your password. A few other items regarding this change.

Infinite Campus passwords will not be affected. Teacher MacBook logins, office staff’s windows logins, any business office/HR logins, or other website logins will not be affected.

Para tablets, chromebooks, or other items utilizing Google sign-in will be affected.

This change will only affect staff accounts. It will NOT affect student logins.

Please note, if you already have a password that is 12 characters or more and have changed your password within the last 180 days, this change will not immediately affect you.

As always, thanks for your continued diligence and watchful eyes regarding cyber security! We understand this is another thing we’re asking you to change; however it’s another small step toward a more secure cyber landscape.

We've received some feedback on how some staff appreciate the increase in security and understand that some changes need to happen. We've also received some feedback regarding the difficulty of remembering a 12 character password. 

We very much understand that this type of change can be difficult and viewed as one more thing that the tech people are doing to us to make our lives more difficult. We really aren't trying to make things more difficult :) What we are trying to do is slowly implement some best practices in cyber security to help strengthen our system and reduce the chances of our systems being compromised. 

We are continuing to try to find a balance of safety and usability within our technology landscape. We'll keep you updated on any further changes!