Password Policy & Complexity Requirements

Shippensburg University requires all users to have a complex password, and also requires that users change their password at least once every 90 days. This is to ensure account security of all employees and students.

Password minimum requirements:

• At least eight (8) characters in length
• May not contain significant portions of your user name, first name or last name
• Must be changed only once within the past 24 hours
• Must be changed at least once every 90 days
• Contain characters from three of the following four categories:
  • English uppercase characters (A through Z)
  • English lowercase characters (a through z)
  • Numeric characters (0 through 9)
  • Special/non-alphabetic, non-numeric characters (!, #, %, space character, etc.)
• Not equal to any of your previous ten (10) passwords

A suggestion for easily creating a strong password is to think in terms of a passphrase or short sentence using punctuation. The examples below are easy to remember, but are strong as well. Please do not use any of these password examples. Treat these examples as guidelines only.

          Forget 7-layer cake!

          I heart my pet

          snowis4ME.

          Not having cake. #sadness

Managing your password

You can change or reset your password by visiting https://password.ship.edu.