Your IU passphrase

Passphrases at Indiana University

You are required to set an IU passphrase, which provides access to all of your IU accounts such as IU Login, email, Canvas, and One.IU.

IU recommends using a short sentence as a passphrase. Your passphrase must contain at least 15 characters (127 characters maximum).

Your IU passphrase is part of your University account.

Differences between passwords and passphrases

Passwords are short sequences of letters, numbers, and symbols that you enter to verify your identity to a system in order to access secure data or other resources. Passphrases operate on the same principle and are used in the same way, but differ from traditional passwords in two aspects:

  • Passphrases are generally longer than passwords. While passwords can frequently be as short as six or even four characters, passphrases have larger minimum lengths and, in practice, typical passphrases might be 20 or 30 characters long. This greater length provides more powerful security; it is far more difficult for a cracker to break a 25-character passphrase than an eight-character password.
  • The rules for valid passphrases differ from those for passwords. Systems that use shorter passwords often disallow actual words or names, which are notoriously insecure; instead, your password is usually an apparently random sequence of characters. The greater length of passphrases, by contrast, allows you to create an easily memorizable phrase rather than a cryptic series of letters, numbers, and symbols.

For more on passphrases, including hints on making secure passphrases, see IU Passphrases.

This is document acpu in the Knowledge Base.
Last modified on 2024-01-10 09:26:49.