Password recommendations

The following list of password recommendations will strengthen your computing experience with Olafe systems, but also with other institutions that have your personal and financial information.

• Choose a password that is greater than 10 characters.
• Choose a complex password - it should have lower and upper case characters, numbers, and symbols.
• Change your password periodically.
• The rate of change should be commensurate with the risk: your favorite blog web site password may not need to be changed as often as your mutual fund management account.
• High risk account passwords should be changed every 1 to 2 months.
• Low risk account passwords can be changed once a year.
• Do not use the same password across different web sites.
• Your picture web site hosting company will not have the same security for your password that your credit card company has implemented. You do not want a disgruntled intern at some small site to gain access to your financial accounts.
• Do not use the same ID for high risk accounts.
• Do not use words that are found in a dictionary.
• Substitute common sounding symbols or numbers for letters that may look alike and easy to remember.
• Here's a popular match:
• s => $
• i => 1
• o => 0 (zero)
• a => @
• l => !
• For example, instead of using 1AwesomeVacation as your password use something like Awe$0meV@c@t10n!
• Pick words (transposed with the above rule) that are easy to remember.
• If you are forced to write down the password, it will defeat the purpose of all of these rules.
• Do not use names of people, pets, locations that are personal to you.
• These names are very easy to gather based often on information that you may have already provided through social media web sites.
• Do not use real answers for questions that are used to reset your password.

Note: Olafe password policy enforces many of these rules.