Western account password change campaign

What is happening?

Western ITS will be targeting Western (@uwo.ca) accounts that have not had a password change in five years or more. If you are in this situation, you will receive an email from ITS with a request to contact them so they can assist you in changing your password.

Three notifications will be sent within a 28-day period until the password is changed. If it’s not changed after the final notification ITS will be re-setting the password on the account and you will have to contact their Helpdesk to regain access to your account.

When?

The campaign will begin in January and continue until all affected accounts have been dealt with.

Why?

Changing your password on a regular basis (at least once per year) is a security best practice which helps keep Western’s network more secure. In addition, many passwords older than five years do not adhere to strong password rules.

What do I have to do?

  • If you have a password less than five years old, there’s nothing for you to do.
  • If your Western password is older than five years and you know how to do it, change your password as soon as you can.
  • If your Western password is older than five years but you do not know how to change it, carefully read and follow the instructions in the targeted email that ITS will send you regarding your password.

We know that you sometimes receive fake unsolicited phishing emails which alert you to ‘system’ or ‘account’ changes and ask you to click a link for you to ‘verify’ or ‘confirm’ your account information – Please note that as part of this password change campaign, you will not be asked to do this, rather you will be asked to contact the ITS helpdesk so they can assist you in changing your password.

Always carefully scrutinize any unsolicited email that asks you to click on an embedded link to ‘confirm’ or ‘verify’ your account. If you have any doubts about the authenticity of any message you receive, please contact the Schulich or ITS helpdesk to confirm before proceeding.

Other information

To assist you in confirming the authenticity of such messages, Western ITS publishes a list of all official mass emails they send.

An article about this initiative has been published at Western’s information security web site.