Sharing Your Password

Sharing your IPFW password is like giving out your social security number. You should never share your password or another individual's password for the following reasons:

• Your unique IPFW username and password is your identity in the digital world.
• Sharing passwords at the workplace is the same as giving away a personal identity.
• IPFW account activity can be tracked for your account; and unethical behavior performed by someone using your account will be traced back to you.
• If someone were to steal information or commit a malicious act while using your account, you could be held responsible.
• Even after you proved your innocence, you could still be held liable for giving out the information.

Giving out your IPFW account and password or using someone else's is a violation of the Ethical Guidelines for IPFW Information Technology Users under the Access Rights and Responsibilities section.

More best practices:

• Avoid password repetition.
  
  • Password repetition is the use of the same password for separate accounts.
  • Sharing a repeated password increases your danger of becoming a victim of identity theft.

This could be for Facebook, e-mail, on-line shopping, or even on-line banking. While this practice makes it easier to remember a myriad of account passwords, the outcome can be very troublesome if that password falls into the wrong hands.

For example, you give your mother your Facebook username and password so she can see pictures of her grand children. It may seem harmless for your mother to have that information, but she may unknowingly give it out because of the many malicious links and viruses on Facebook. If this password is compromised and you repeat passwords, someone may now have all the information they need to access your e-mail account, your on-line shopping accounts, and on-line banking accounts.

• Create an individual account password and username for each online account.
• Use a separate e-mail account for social media and networking sites that require one.
  
  • Open a new free email account with any free e-mail service (e.g., Yahoo, Gmail) when a social media and networking site requires an e-mail address during account creation.
• Be cautious when entering account names and passwords online.
  
  • Always check the URLs address before logging into a site and never save your login information.
  • Saving your login username/password is the same as 'sharing' this information with anyone with access to that computer.
• Do not leave 'sticky notes' with any account login information on/near your computer. This also includes files stored on your computer.

Return to Information Technology news Headlines