Changing Your Password

On the Create New Password page, you will be prompted to create and input your new password. Your password must meet the following:

• Be 8-15 characters long
• In the first eight (8) characters, you need at least one of the following:
  • Letters
  • Numbers
  • One of the following special characters:
    • ! % * ~ _ - { } ? [ ] , .
• Cannot be any combination of your first name, last name, or Universal Username

Input your new password into both of the fields. If your password passes the strength checks, you will have successfully reset your password.

Note: Employees of the University Police Department and other employees (including student employees) who use workstations that accept credit card payments have different password requirements than other faculty, staff, and students at Western. View the password requirements for UPD and PCI workstations users.

• Must contain a minimum of 8 characters, but not more than 15
• You must use at least one character from each of the following character types (and you must have at least one letter, one number, and one special character within the first 8 characters of the password)
  • Upper or lower case alphabetic text
  • Numbers
  • The special characters ~ ! % * _ -  ? , .
• No English language dictionary words may be used.
• The symbols [ ] { } and < > have been known to cause issues across some systems and should be avoided
• No part of your name may be used.
• No part of your USERID may be used.
• Do not use your phone number or room number.

If you are working off-campus on a university-owned Windows computer, you will also need to sync the new password to your computer using the steps in this article: My computer accepts only my previous password

If you encounter the error where the page seems to 'reload' and kick you back to the start, open the page below in an Incognito, InPrivate or Private browsing window and continue from there by right-clicking the button and selecting "Open link in a new Incognito/InPrivate/Private browsing window". This is a known bug in the interaction between modern browser caching and that page.

Outside of the reasons discussed in Password Aging: Why We Change Our Passwords Regularly, the frequency at which we require users to change their passwords is determined by the state. Per University Policy U3000.07, we adhere to the Washington State Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) Standard 141.10, Securing Information Technology Assets. In section 6.3.2 Internal Authentication, this standard requires that the password expiration period does not exceed 120 days.