One of the most common ways an account is compromised is when it shares a password with an account on an unrelated service. The best way to protect yourself is to use a different password for every service you use, such as one password for La Salle services (Moodle, PowerSchool, etc.) and one for every other site you visit.

A passphrase is a sequence of words or other text used to control access to a computer system, program or data. A passphrase is similar to a password in usage, but is generally longer for added security. Passphrases differ from passwords. A password is usually short—six to ten characters. Passphrases usually are much longer—20 to 30 characters or more. Additionally, they can be structured to be more easily memorable than passwords without being written down.

Typical advice about choosing a passphrase includes suggestions that it should be:

• Long enough to be hard to guess
• Not a famous quotation from literature, holy books, et cetera
• Hard to guess by intuition—even by someone who knows the user well
• Easy to remember and type accurately
• Not reused between sites, applications and other different sources.

1. Start at your desktop.
2. Press CTRL + ALT + DELETE.
3. Select the option of changing your password.
4. In the old password box, type in your current password.
5. In the new password box, type in your new password.
   • The new password has to be at least 8 characters long and cannot be similar to your old password.
6. In the confirm password box, retype the new password.
7. Press enter or the arrow button on the screen to finish changing your password.