There are two reasons why you would want to change your password. The first is if you believe someone is using your credentials. The second is when you are prompted via your IMSA Email roughly every 6 months. However annoying this may be, it is served in your best interest. Of the plethora of reasons for changing your password, the most important is security. Giving your authentication credential an expiration date prevents another person from prolonging the use of your identity.
Click on this link and follow the directions to change your password (this method requires you to log in first): Change Password Web Page
If you are having problems with the above link, here is another way to access it:
Step 1
Go to the IMSA website.
Step 2
Scroll down to the bottom and click on “Change Password” in the bottom nagivation bar.
Step 3
Click on “Change known password” and fill out the required information. If you do not remember your password or your password expired before you were able to change it, click on “Reset unknown password” and fill out the required information. You will need access to your external email to reset an unknown password.
Step 4
You should see a “Password changed” notification.
Step 5
Come see an SCS member or, if you are more tech-savvy, follow these instructions to:
Update saved credentials [Windows] [Mac]
If airimsa does not work after updating credentials:
Manually setup airimsa profile [Windows]
Tips for a Strong Password
- Use different passwords everywhere.
- This includes your bank account, Facebook, IMSA Log-in, etc.
- Use a minimum of 8 characters in your password
- Use a minimum of one each of the following:
- lower case letter
- upper case letter
- number
- special character (!@#$%^&*()-_={}[]:;”~’?<>`+)
- Don’t use any of the following:
- Full words
- Any words appearing in any dictionary (in any language)
- Numbers or letters that appear together on the keyboard (i.e. 3456 or asdf)
- Name of relative, pets, birthday, etc.
Examples of Building a Strong Password
Option 1
You can take a common word such as “William Shakespeare” and turn it into an unrecognizable password that will be difficult to crack.
Step 1: Spell it backwards “eraepsekahsmailliw”
Step 2: Substitute numbers for some characters (e.g. the letter “l” looks like the number 1)”3r3ps3kah5mai11iw”
Step 3: Give variety in lowercase and capital letters “3r3Ps3kAh5mai11iw”
Step 4: Special characteres (e.g. the character “@” looks like the letter “a”) “3r3Ps3kAh5m@!11!w”
When choosing any sort of substitutions, make sure what you choose makes sense to you! That way, it will be easier for you to remember your own password.
Want to know how secure your password is? Check out https://howsecureismypassword.net !
According to this site, it would take a PC 931 trillion years to crack “3r3Ps3kAh5m@!11!w”
Option 2
Think of phrase or tune you enjoy, song lyrics or quotes are just fine. Let’s use “Jack and Jill went up the hill” as an example
Step 1: Take the first letter of each word “jajwuth”
Step 2: Add uppercase letters “JajwUth”
Step 3: Add special characters “J&jwUth”
Step 4: Add numbers to the password “J&jwUth7”