Starting this semester, the Office of Computing Services will require everyone with a PAWS account to update his or her password about every two months.
The required change is the result of a new interpretation of a 31-year-old law meant to protect student privacy — The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act — said John Borne, assistant director of system support for the Enterprise Solutions Group, a part of the Office of Computing Services.
Although the passwords are already protected, Borne said the University is requiring the password change to provide an extra measure of insurance against computer administrators and hackers who could potentially gain access to PAWS passwords.
Yoo-Hwan Hwang, systems manager for the department of computer science, said the password changes must occur every 60 days for security to be up to speed. Hwang said his computer gets about 200 security attacks a day.
OCS will keep track of when students change their passwords and prompt the password-change screen 60 days later. The screen will appear repeatedly when students log onto PAWS until they change it.
Although the password change is necessary, Hwang said it will be “a lot of work for OCS” because many people already forget their passwords without changing them every two months.
Borne said OCS is requiring the password change from students, faculty and staff in stages to avoid a system overload. He said they will begin the mandatory password change for faculty and staff this month, and it will affect students after the add-drop date.
Though mass communication freshman Julia Futrell said she doubts anyone would try to hack into her PAWS account, she plans to change her password anyway.
Despite the disbelief of students like Futrell, Borne insists computer hackers are a common problem.
“People try to break into machines every day,” he said.