Password managers
These days, most everyone has dozens of accounts to keep track of. This naturally leads to a tendency to reuse the same passwords across services, because who can remember 27 different passwords? However, reusing passwords leaves you much more vulnerable to having your account compromised. If your password gets leaked from one service, bad actors will look for other accounts you may have that might be using the same password.
To avoid this, FGC IT strongly recommends using password managers to help you create and manage your passwords across your many accounts. There are many free and low-cost options available. Below are a few of the most popular:
You don’t have to just take our word for it, however. See the bulletin below from KnowBe4, FGC’s official cybersecurity training partner.
Active Directory and single sign-on
Active Directory (AD) is the identity service used to authenticate FGC students, faculty, and staff when signing in to most college-provided services, including the single sign-on service used to log in to Banner and Canvas. This article contains important information about AD password policies and requirements.
The following are some – but not all – of the services using your AD password:
Banner and Banner Document Management
Canvas / “My Courses”
College email address
Dynamic Forms
FGC Dropbox / ZendTo
Scholarship Manager
Password complexity, lifetime, and reuse requirements
AD user passwords must meet all of the following requirements:
At least 8 characters in length
Allowed characters:
A-Z
a-z
0-9
@ # $ % ^ & * - _ ! + = [ ] { } | \ : ' , . ? / ` ~ " ( ) ; < >
blank space
Must have three out of four of the following:
Lowercase characters
Uppercase characters
Numbers (0-9)
Symbols (see Allowed characters, above)
Passwords may not be reused.
Passwords may not contain your username.
Passwords may not be changed more often than every 30 days. (Note: If you believe your password has been compromised and you need to change it but are within the 30-day window, contact the Technology Helpdesk for assistance.)
Your Active Directory / Single Sign-On password will expire every 365 days. When it expires, you will be required to choose a new password.
Changing your password
There are several ways to change your AD password if you are still able to log in. If you don’t know your password and need help getting into your account, see Getting back into your account.
It may take up to 5 minutes for your new password to apply across all of your services. If you are still receiving authentication errors after that time, please contact the Technology Helpdesk.
Whenever changing your password, don’t forget to update any saved credentials referencing the password, such as mobile devices accessing your college email. Failure to do so may lead to your account being automatically locked.
Using an on-campus PC
Log on to Windows using your AD credentials.
Using the keyboard, press and hold
CTRL+ALT+DELat the time time.Select Change a password.
Follow the instructions on the screen.
Using Microsoft’s My Account page
Sign in at https://myaccount.microsoft.com using your FGC email address.
Select Password from the left sidebar.
Follow the instructions on the screen.
Account lockout
If you fail too many login attempts consecutively, your account will automatically lock itself to protect your data against brute force attacks. Your account will automatically unlock after 30 minutes. If you need it unlocked sooner, you can use the self-service account recovery or contact the Technology Helpdesk.
Getting back into your account
If you’ve forgotten your password, or you have been locked out after too many unsuccessful login attempts, you can use Microsoft’s self-service account recovery tool to get back into your account. To use the self-service option, go here: https://passwordreset.microsoftonline.com/
If the self-service option isn’t working for you, please contact the Technology Helpdesk for assistance.