Password

From ctowiki

A password is a secret code that is used to gain access to a system, much like a PIN number for an ATM or a special word to gain entrance to a club. Passwords should be treated as private information and should not be shared with anyone. It is best to choose a password that is easy to remember, but hard to guess. Good passwords contain letters, numbers, and special characters (such as periods, exclamation marks, etc.).

WSU has very stringent password rules for Network IDs.

Password must be no less than 8 characters and no more than 80 characters long
Password must contain at least one of each of the following characters sets: upper case letters, lower case letter, numbers, and special characters (!@#$%^&*()?)
Your password cannot be any words as they are found in our dictionary
Your password cannot be the same as or based on your name or Network ID
Passwords may not have repetitive text, including the same character 3 times in a row
Passwords may not use dictionary words written in "Leet Speak", as they can be easily guessed with password cracking tools.

New password guidelines at WSU also allow for pass phrases, which are multiple words with spaces that can be easy to remember. An example would be "We R going to work 2day!". Passwords or pass phrases that are over 17 characters are considered strong enough to not be checked for dictionary words or "Leet Speak".

Why does my password fail?

Sometimes a password that seems complicated (and has letters, numbers, and special characters) will still fail. A few examples of passwords which do not pass are...

Pu!11m@n1@#ds: This failed because the "!" was translated to "I" and the "11" was translated to "II" using leet speak. The system then decided that three "III"s in a row is considered too repetitive or too simple and was rejected.

H0tdOg!#123: This would have been flagged because leet speak changes the zeros to "o" and you get "hotdog" which is in the dictionary.

P@$$1&2w0rd: In this case, leet speak translated the first four characters to "pass" which was in the dictionary. But if that wasn't there then it would have caught "w0rd" which would have been translated to "word" which is in the dictionary.