Microsoft require us to migrate Live@UCL to their Office 365 offering. This is currently being planned but is unlikely to take place before July 2013.

One of the requirements of Office 365 will be an 8 character minimum password length and we want to ensure that all users are compliant with this by the time we migrate. Given a 150 day password life we need to enforce this within the next few weeks.

The Service Desk have been promoting the use of 8 character passwords as best practice for some time. However, it has been possible to set a shorter password provided the character mix it was made up of was sufficiently complex.

It is currently planned to enforce the 8 character password length minimum on Tuesday 29th January. This means that anyone changing their password from that day on will need to choose one that is 8 characters long. Please note, it will NOT be necessary for any user with a shorter password to immediately change it (until they receive the usual expiry e-mail messages).