Keep your passphrase secure

Important:
No one at Indiana University (including UITS), or anywhere else, should ask for your passphrase for any reason, whether in person or via phone, chat, email, postal mail, or online in any way. If you doubt the authenticity of any email message or website, or worry about your IT accounts, contact your campus Support Center as soon as possible.

To keep your IU passphrase secure:

  • Create a strong passphrase: This is the first step to keeping your IU computing accounts secure. For details, see Your IU passphrase.
  • Never share your passphrase with anyone, or reuse it for other accounts: It is against university policy to do so. This includes family, friends, significant others, computer support people, vendors, outside websites or applications, and bosses. If you need someone to read your email, that person can do so without your passphrase by using the delegates feature in Outlook; see Allow others to send mail on your behalf in Outlook for Windows.
  • Use a passphrase vault: A passphrase vault is a program that balances the security of multiple passphrases with the convenience of recording them. You create a single strong passphrase to protect the passphrase vault, and the vault takes care of securely storing the rest of your hard-to-remember passphrases. For more about passphrase vaults, see the “Passphrase vault best practices” and “Passphrase vault programs” sections of Use a passphrase to secure your account.
  • Change your passphrase if it is compromised: For instructions, see Change your IU passphrase.
  • Never send your passphrase in email, even if the request looks official: Not only is doing so against university policy (see the first suggestion in this list), but such requests are most likely phishing attempts.
  • Make your computer's administrative password and your IU passphrase different: Besides your IU passphrase, you should also have an administrative password for your computer, and the two should be different. For information about the administrative account, see About your device's administrator account.

This is document arti in the Knowledge Base.
Last modified on 2023-10-10 13:51:56.