Earlier this month, California State University Stanislaus, (Stan State) Office of Information Technology (OIT) implemented a mandatory password change to everyone who uses a campus account.
According to Wade Williams (Director Technology and Learning Services), the reason for this measure was to meet the requirements set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
“The campus completed a CSU required Information Security Audit, [and] one of the audit findings stated that our password standards needed to be updated to comply with new CSU requirements,” Williams said.
After the Yahoo hack late last year and Equifax data breach earlier this year, having a secure password is becoming an even greater necessity in an individual’s digital life.
Jeremiah Zumsteg (senior, Psychology) feels that the password changes is needed and that his job is adamant in mandatory password changes.
“I feel it’s necessary. I don’t know what threats they have towards their network system, but password change is a good tool to keep your account more safe,” Zumsteg said.
“I’m in the army reserves, and I did many years active duty, and they implemented password changes even more frequently because our systems were under constant attack or potential for attack,” Zumsteg added.
The new password requirements also require that the password must be at least 12 characters long and be changed every six months.
“Upon sampling other universities and standard procedures, the 180-day expiration was set for our campus,” Williams said. “Under NIST recommended standards, the 12-character password length allowed for a longer expiration of the password (180-day vs 90-day). We also decided to increase the maximum password length to 127 characters to accommodate people who want to use a passphrase as their password.”
Akas Singh (freshman, Business) has different passwords for each unique website he uses.
“I diversify the passwords I use and make them different in each website I visit,” Singh said.
On the initial date of the password change, an email detailing the date of the change that would affect all campus accounts failed to be sent out. As a result, many students were having trouble signing into the school’s Wi-Fi, making the experience less than harmonious.
“There was a surge of students who came to the Technology Support Desk when the scheduled expiration [was] executed, who needed assistance to reset their passwords,” Williams said.
Students who are having difficulty with changing their password should visit the password policy policy page.
