We rely on security features like 2-factor authentication to protect our data online, but we tend to ignore our personal computer’s password policy (I suspect many know exactly what it is). Your Windows login password is equally important, and so not paying attention to it would not be a wise move.
It’s not that Windows doesn’t offer an option to improve the password policy; It’s just that most of us don’t know about this feature. We set the password conveniently and then forget to change it in time.
So let me show you all the password policies you can put in place in Windows 7 and 8 to enhance the security of your computer. We will also try to understand what these policies mean and how they work.
Enforce a secure password policy
Open the Start Menu and type Local Security Policy to search and open it. When the Window opens, navigate to Security Settings -> Account Policy -> Password Policy. Here you will see all the password rules that you can enforce on all the accounts configured on the system.
So let’s see what each of these policies means and how to configure them.
Enforce Password History
This particular module will keep track of the passwords that you use on your computer and store them in history. Now, the next time you change your password, it will prompt you if you are using any old password and force you to use the new password. Windows can log the last 24 passwords, but ideally set it to the last 8 passwords. To set the value, open the policy and set the value between 0 and 24.
Maximum password age
This specific policy will determine the number of days you can use your password before being forced to change it. The maximum password age can be set between 1 and 999 days. So when the user forgets to change the password within that particular time period, the system will force the user to change the password.
To disable this policy, simply change the value to 0 and the user’s password will never expire.
Minimum password age
This policy enforces the minimum number of days a user must use a password before it can be reset. Ideally the value should be no more than 1 day, but like Maximum Password Age it can be set to a number between 1 and 999 days. However, make sure that the value is less than the maximum password value.
Minimum password length
As the name suggests, this policy ensures that passwords used by users are of the ideal length. The ideal length of the password should be at least 8 characters but can be any value between 1 and 14.
Password must meet complex requirements
This is one of the most important parameters you have to configure if you want your users to set a secure password that is hard to pass.
If this policy is enabled, the password must meet the following minimum requirements:
- Does not contain the user’s account name or parts of the user’s full name that exceed two consecutive characters
- At least six characters long
- Contains characters from three of the following four categories:
- English capital letters (A to Z)
- English lowercase characters (a to z)
- Base 10 digits (0 to 9)
- Non-alphabetic characters (e.g. !, $, #, %)
- The complexity requirement is enforced when the password is changed or created.
Store passwords with reversible encryption
This security setting determines whether the operating system stores passwords using reverse encryption. I don’t know much about the technical details regarding the policy but the bottom line is that it encrypts the password as it is stored on the system.
Conclusion
So here are 6 policies that you can enable on your Windows system to ensure that secure password policies are in place and your data remains safe from unauthorized access.
These policies may not be helpful to the average end user, but if you’re running a small business and using a Windows PC in your office, it’s important that you’re the administrator. This policy must be enabled for all users.
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Categories: How to
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