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User Account Enforcement

A User Account Enforcement dictates the various measures and limitations that are enforced on the user account that are in use by NUS Staff and Students. One of which is the Password Enforcement. It is as described below.

Password Enforcement. Why?

• Number of day(s) after which a password must be changed: 180
• Number of day(s) before a password may be changed: 1 (to be interpreted as 24 hours)
• Minimum number of characters in a password: 6
• Number of old passwords that cannot be re-used: 6

This means that we cannot change our passwords when it is less than 24 hours old and we must change our passwords when it is 180 days old.

When we are changing passwords, we cannot re-use 6 passwords that was used previously, and the new password must consist of at least 6 characters.

For the sake of security, everyone is encouraged to change passwords as often as possible. This is to mitigate the possibility of intruders from guessing or hacking our passwords. Since it takes time for hackers to crack/guess passwords, enforcing age limit on passwords and to restrict the use of previous passwords are reasonably sound measures in which we can help ourselves by keeping our password secure and hard to guess.

Password Expiry Reminder

If you click on "No", you may then proceed as usual to login to your desktop. But when you next login to NUSNET, you will receive the same reminder again.

If you click on "Yes", you will be presented with a user-interface which is similar to the one in the How do I change my password section below.

How do I change my password?

There are 2 ways in which you may change your password before they expire:

1. When you are connecting back to NUS via commercial ISP such as Singnet and Starhub, you may navigate to Outlook Web Access website and click on the Change password. You will be presented with the below:

   

   Key in your old and new passwords accordingly and click on "OK", you will be notified when the change is successful. Note again that the new password must be at least 6 characters and cannot be the same as 6 passwords that you have used before.

2. When you are logged in to NUSNET in campus on a Windows XP/2000 professional PC, press CTRL+ALT+DEL key on your workstation and choose "Change Password...". You will be presented with the following:

   

   Key in your old and new passwords accordingly and click on "OK", you will be notified when the change is successful. Note again that the new password must be at least 6 characters and cannot be the same as 6 passwords that you have used before.

If you have changed your password in PC desktop, you must connect your laptop to NUS network by LAN cable with your new NUSNET password at least once, so your system will update your windows profile from the server.

• For Internet Explorer, you will be prompted again when visiting websites that requires authentication, you may then key in your updated password.



• For myNUS Intranet, you may update your password by logging in to myNUS and click on Customise followed by Sign-In. Update your new password under Password and remember to click on Save. If you do not require this feature in myNUS, you may safely ignore it.



• For Wireless users, after changing your NUSNET password, update your password in the wireless utility program which you have previously saved the password.
  • For Centrino wireless: From windows Start menu -> All programs -> Intel network adapters -> Intel Proset for wireless From Intel Proset Menu Select Network tab, Select NUS wireless profile -> Click Edit -> Goto Security tab -> Click Configure -> Update your password.
  • For Cisco wireless: From windows Start menu -> All programs -> Cisco Aironet -> Cisco ACU Utility
    From Cisco ACU Utility, Click on Profile Manager -> Select NUS wireless profile -> Click Edit -> Goto Network Security tab -> Click Configure -> Update your password.
  
  
• For VPN users (only applicable to old version of VPN) To check VPN version, start VPN -> Help -> About NUS VPN Client. The latest version is 4.0.5. In the old version of VPN, you could have saved your password. If so, open your VPN -> Click Option -> Erase password. After that, click on Connect and VPN will prompt for userID and password.


Note: It is advisable that you install the latest VPN software (version 4.0.5). Otherwise, you will have to do the above steps every 180 days later when your password next expire again. To install the latest VPN, refer https://network.nus.edu.sg/starterkit/#VPN


• For third-party applications, please contact your service provider/vendor for more information on updating saved passwords.

Guidelines for a good password

• Be as long as possible, preferably at least 7 characters in length.
• Consists of alpHaBets in uPpER and lOWeR cases.
• Consists of numb3rs.
• Consists of at least one or more symbol$ and punctu@t!ons.
• Be a password that was never used before.
• Be a password that is significantly different from the previous one.

• Consists of one or more words that can be found in the dictionary.
• Consists of names.
• Consists of a string that is made up of adjacents keys on the keyboard, eg. qwertyu or zxcvbnm
• Consists of your personal information such as IC number, staff card number or your birthdate. This is because such information is also known to many others, not just yourself.

• Do not use it when someone is looking at you keying it in.
• Do not repeat it by mouth when you are typing it.
• Do not document it down especially on a notepad right beside your computer.

What happens if my password has expired?

After your password has expired, you will be prompted to change it when you next login to NUSNET. Before the password change has actually taken place, you will not be able to login successfully to utilise various IT resources and applications such as E-mail, myNUS and VPN etc.

It is strongly advised that you change your password early, and not wait until it expires, so that you can avoid the inconvenience of service outages due to expired passwords.

Can I check my account information whenever I need to?

Simply login to myAccount.

Note that you may be prompted for authentication. When that happens, key in your NUSNET UserID in the form of nusstf\userID followed by your own NUSNET password.

Note that the link will not work if your password has actually expired!! If that happens, refer to the section above on how to change password.

Where can I read up more on the Password best practises?