Password Reset

Again, things came in pairs today.

I’m working from home at the moment and have a work laptop. For the last few days its been pinging me a reminder that I’ll need to reset my login password soon. It even counts down the days until the current password expires and suggests that you could do it earlier if you want to.

Why oh why then, was I completely annoyed when this morning I was asked to enter a new password and had to think of a new one. I’ve had a week to think of one. And it’s always when you want to get on with something, so it throws you off your train of thought. And then, the only ones that you think you’ll remember are ones you’ve had before that the system won’t allow you to use again. And it has to be a minimum number of characters, contain at least one number and one non-alphanumeric character. And they still expect you to be able to remember it without writing it down.

And that’s just the front log in screen. Everything you want to access in a different system also requires a password. But with a different number minimum character length, so you can’t use the same one. Then it’ll tell you that’s its too similar to previous passwords so think of another.

Then there’s the system that requires you to enter a new password, but then its going to send you a new verification code so you can’t access the system until you’ve had that email. And that email may take 24 hours to get to you.

This was the second password reset request of the day.

I need to get into this stuff to be able to get on with work. I understand the need to ensure everything is secure but surely once you’re in the main front door system, you should be allowed to access everything within it without the need for 27 different sets of log on details.