Dear Colleagues,
Many activities at Middlebury involve electronic systems and the campus network. Just a few examples are: on-line course registration, distribution of grades, financial aid services, many business systems, benefits administration for faculty and staff, IRS reporting, and credit card processing. As custodians of Middlebury's information technology security, Library and Information Services must take every prudent step to maintain the security and integrity of our systems and network.
One critical layer of information security is your personal password. This is not only the key to the security of your own accounts, but to the security of the Middlebury community, (since most system-wide attacks begin by compromising an individual account). For this reason, periodic password changes - like running virus protection - should be part of every computer user's basic security regimen.
Because it can be disruptive to change passwords on a forced schedule, Middlebury has, in the past, recommended a regular change and relied on individuals to do so voluntarily. A recent review of security vulnerabilities highlighted the importance of password protection, and a review of password change statistics showed that few users were changing their passwords regularly. Therefore, in order to protect Middlebury's network, in the near future LIS will be implementing enforced password expiration procedures for all campus systems and services, including your network password. While our Middlebury systems are protected in multiple ways, strong and frequently changed passwords are a critical component of our security. We strongly advise you to change your network password now if you have not done so within the past year. You can do this in less than a minute at: https://cat.middlebury.edu:603/activate/
https://cat.middlebury.edu:603/activate/
Please follow these recommendations to create a "strong" (not easily deciphered) password.
Use a password that is easy to remember, so you do not have to write it down.
Use a password with a combination of mixed-case alphabetic characters and numbers.
Use at least one punctuation symbol.
Do not use proper names or words contained in dictionaries.
Also, never give your password to anyone else, and never write it down - memorize it!
Thank you for your assistance in protecting the security of the Middlebury community.
Library and Information Services