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Davis

Davis, California

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

University mandates stronger passphrases for campus community

UC Davis’ Chief Information Officer (CIO) has issued a campus directive urging students, faculty and staff to update their university passphrases to comply with new federal standards.

In April, Peter M. Siegel, the university’s CIO and vice provost of information and educational technology signed Directive 10-021 which states that new Kerberos passphrases must be at least 12 characters or twice as long.

The directive stated that the current password standard is outdated and the campus community should adopt the new change.

“These requirements must be met in order for campus constituents to continue to use campus accounts to access federal agency resources such as grant applications and documentation,” the directive states.

The new passphrases also differ from existing passwords by allowing the use of spaces, a series of dictionary words and additional characters. The university hopes to move all campus account holders to the new minimum security standard by Dec. 6.

While the university has set up a website to allow individuals to create their new passwords, it has also divided the drive into two phases.

From May to October, the directive states, campus technology support staff will help faculty and staff with the transition.

And from October onward, IET will notify account holders who have not made the switch with warnings announcing the expiration of their passwords. Those who do not comply with the new federal standard by the deadline will be denied access to their accounts until their passphrase is changed.

For more information on the passphrase upgrade, visit security.ucdavis.edu/passphrase.cfm. To change your password or to test a new passphrase, visit computingaccounts.ucdavis.edu.

LESLIE TSAN can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

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