Password Rules:
- Your new password must be at least 8 characters long.
- Passwords for secondary ("AA") accounts and service accounts must be at least 15 characters long.
- Your new password must meet the NIH password complexity and history requirements.
- Your new password must contain characters from at least three of the four categories listed below.
- Uppercase letters (A-Z)
- Lowercase letters (a-z)
- Numerals (0-9)
- Allowed special characters ( ` ~ ! @ # $ % ^ & * - + _ = | \ { } [ ] (): ; " ' < > , . ? /)
- The space character is also allowed.
Important note for NCI staff only: Your new password must include at least one character from each of the four categories.
Password Tips:
- NIH encourages you to use a pass phrase for your password.
- A pass phrase is a sequence of words that is easy to remember and type.
- Pass phrases are considered more secure because they are longer than a typical password.
- Consider a phrase such as, “Sophie’s 3 puppies are tan + brown”.
- It satisfies NIH requirements for length and complexity, but is really secure due to its length, and because it has upper and lower case letters, special characters and numbers.