What Are the Guidelines for Choosing a Password?

U-M system administrators are now using some sophisticated programs that help users avoid choosing an insecure password. The programs check the password selected and can disallow a poor choice. To avoid problems, follow these basic guidelines when choosing your UMICH password:

Use at least seven characters; the more characters, the better (as long as you can remember them). You can use up to 63 characters, so be creative.
Make your password easy for you to remember but hard for someone else to guess. Picking letters from a phrase that's meaningful to you may be the source for a good password. In this way, your password is really a "pass phrase." ("Do you know the way to San Jose?" could be D!Y!KtwTSJ?)
Intersperse punctuation marks or symbols such as #, $, %, etc. Do not use a blank space.
Always use a mixture of upper- and lowercase characters.
Never write down your password; someone else might see it.
Select a unique password. Do not use a password that you are using for some other purpose, such as your PIN at the bank or your password to another system.

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