Your password must be at least 12 characters long, and contain at least three of the four types of character (upper case, lower case, numbers, symbols).
Tips for choosing a good, easy to remember password are included below.

To change your password from a College owned PC (whether in the bulding or at home), press CTRL ALT Delete and chose Change Password.
If you prefer, or if you do not have access to a College PC, you can change your password online:

  • Log in to your account in the normal way, at https://www.office.com/
  • Click on the "Settings" cog near the top right
  • Click on "Change your password", and follow the instructions

This service will not allow weak passwords, or passwords that other people have used in the past, so it will help ensure your password is a good one.
If you run into problems with changing your password, please either email IT@rncm.ac.uk, call in to the IT office, or phone 0161 9075257 for assistance.

 

After you have changed your password, you will need to set up eduroam again on your phone/laptop, to continue connecting to WiFi in the building.
This only takes a few minutes to do. Follow the instructions at https://rncm.ac.uk/eduroam/.

How to create a good password

A good password is one that is easy for you to remember, but hard for a computer (making 100s of guesses a second) to crack.

Here are some ideas for creating a good password:

  • Use three completely random, unrelated words
  • Use an entire sentence, even including spaces and punctuation
  • Think of a phrase (song lyric, favourite joke etc), and use the first letter of each word

Your password must have three of the four types of character (upper case, lower case, numbers, symbols).
Your password must be at least 12 characters long.

Your RNCM password must be different to every other password you use
Why? Websites get hacked all the time. If you use your RNCM email address and password elsewhere and that website gets hacked, then they have access to your RNCM account too.

Your RNCM Password must be complicated
Why? Hackers are constantly trying to log into virtually every account on the internet, trying random passwords until they get in. They are not trying to hack you specifically, they are trying to hack anyone. If your password is a simple one, like “Beethoven4” or “Manchester21”, it is literally only a matter of time before your account gets hacked.

As a minimum, your password must have three of the four types of character (upper case, lower case, numbers, symbols), but this alone doesn’t guarantee that your password is good enough.

You must keep your password secret
Why? Anything that happens using your password is your responsibility. There is no need to share your password; if you need other people to have access to your account, we can help you set it up so they can access things from their account (which is normally even easier for them).

Why does all of this matter?

  • If people get into your account, they could be monitoring everything you do. The average length of time before a hack gets noticed is over 6 months. That’s 6 months of someone reading every email you send or receive.
  • Even if you don’t mind people reading your emails, your email probably contains personal data about other people (students, staff, 3rd parties). Would you be happy with your private information being held in an account that hackers have access to?
  • Even if you don’t think that is a big problem, we are required to report data breaches, and we could potentially receive a large fine from the ICO.
  • Even if your account doesn’t have any information about other people, hackers can still use your account to send out phishing/blackmail emails to other people. This could be random strangers on the internet, or your friends and colleagues, who might be tricked because the email came from a familiar address.
Last modified: Thursday, 9 June 2022, 11:18 AM