Change User Account Password
For new users, you are required to assign a password to your newly created HKUST Account before you can use any network services:
- Undergraduate and postgraduate students will be prompted for a new password when they perform Student Account Activation
- Staff users or other accounts (e.g. Project account) owners will need to assign a new password by referring to the account activation email.
For existing users, you are also advised to change ITSO network password periodically. To change your password:
After you have changed your network password, please refer to Reminders after Password Change.
Minimum Password Requirement
- Minimum 12 in length
- Must contain mixed case letters and numbers
- Cannot include username or part of your name
- Do not reuse any of your last 10 passwords
Recommendation for choosing a password for best protection
- Are easy to remember, so they do not have to be written down
- Can be typed quickly, so somebody cannot follow what you type by looking over your shoulder
- Put together an acronym that is special to you, e.g. none OTFS W? (None Of This Fancy Stuff Works?)
- Include space or symbol, plus some deliberately misspelled words, e.g. twinZ /w9 *s (Twins with 9 stars)
- AVOID using any of the following:
- Your name/Your spouse’s name/Anybody’s name
- Names of your favorite fantasy characters
- The name of the operating system you are using
- The hostname of your computer
- Any username on the computer in any form (as is, capitalized, or doubled, etc)
- Your phone numbers
- A place
- A proper noun
- Other information of you that’s easily obtainable
- A word in the English dictionary
- A word in a foreign dictionary
- Passwords of all the same letter
- Simple patterns of letters on the keyboard, like qwerty
- Any of the above spelled backwards
- Any of the above beginning with or followed by a single digit