A message from Information Technology Services:
There’s an unofficial agreement among much of the Internet citizenry that February 1 is Change Your Password Day.
While it’s a great time to change your password(s), the day is more about raising awareness about password hygiene and maintenance. It’s not just a once-a-year thing to keep in mind.
For instance, there are times when you should change your password immediately:
- You are made aware of unauthorized activity on one of your accounts;
- Your device (computer, phone, table, etc.) was compromised or infected with malware;
- If you have ever shared your account with someone else. (You should never do that, but if you had to, changing your password right away is imperative);
- If a service that you use suffers a data breach or other cybersecurity incident. You’ll likely hear about it in the news. If the news is about a web site or online service that you use, change your password(s);
- You accessed your account(s) using a public computer.
What about the rest of the time? When does it make sense to change your passwords on various accounts that you might use? We’ll talk a little bit about password sharing as well.
At work, there will be a rule that forces you to change your password periodically. Right now, Niagara College follows the recommended 90 day schedule. Never share your work passwords.
At home and elsewhere, use your own judgement, but here are some ideas that might help you come up with a password change schedule that works for you.
For streaming services, it’s common to share passwords within a household and that typically is within the allowance of the services rules. Think about changing those passwords every six months. More often than that can be a chore. If you have someone in the household that is not good at keeping their password hygiene up to your standards, you might want to change these passwords more often.
For online shopping, never share your passwords. Have everyone set up their own accounts. For some larger shopping services, there are ways to link accounts. Think about changing these every six months as a regular schedule. Most offer two factor authentication as well. Use it. You’ll hate it until it saves you from some unauthorized activity. Then, you’ll want to have it on every account and online service.
For email, never share your password. Think about changing your password every three months. Your email address is often used as a username in other accounts. Also, having access to your email opens up opportunity to get into your other accounts. Two factor authentication is a good idea for email as well. Many two factor solutions allow you to register a device so that you don’t have to second factor authenticate every time.
For social media accounts, never share your password. Consider changing your password as often as every six months. Social media accounts are closely tied to your identity. You want to protect them. Many social media services can also act as authentication sources for other sites and services (think about the last time a site asked if you wanted to “Log in with Facebook”). It’s convenient. It’s a safe method to authenticate. However, if your Facebook account gets compromised, it can provide access to all of those others sites for which you’ve used the Facebook login for access.
There is a movement to do away with password changes unless there is a good reason to do so. It makes sense as long as you have a very strong password hygiene practice. In other words, if you use strong passwords and you don’t detect any unauthorized activity, why bother changing your password.
It makes sense but requires diligence to maintain good password hygiene. Something that can help you adopt better password hygiene is a password manager. A good password manager will remember all your passwords for you and can generate strong passwords automatically.
When looking for a password manager solution, consider where you will need to access your password list: at home (PC, laptop, tablet, etc.), at work (PC, Laptop, mobile phone), on the road (mobile phone) and make sure the solution covers all of the scenarios. Some even offer secure password sharing to other users for when it is appropriate (as in a family account) that lets others use the password without actually being able to see it.
For information on protecting your Niagara College password, visit the Password Management page.
