Within the next year, all Wiscmail users must change their passwords to comply with new minimum-security standards to prevent hacking of e-mail accounts and loss of personal information, the UW-Madison Division of Information Technology said at its Feb. 17 meeting.
DoIT cited concerns of the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau, an agency that assists the Legislature in maintenance of state operations, as the reason for increasing security of campus computing and implementing the more rigorous standards.
New passwords must be a minimum of eight characters and include upper- and lower-case letters, digits and special characters like asterisks or percent signs, according to DoIT.
DoIT also recommends passwords not be actual words in any language, including slang, jargon and proper nouns.
Security Manager Jim Lowe said DoIT will phase in the policy incrementally but students are strongly encouraged to change their NetID passwords immediately.
Students can update their passwords at https://www.mynetid.wisc.edu/password-resetindex.jsp.
