How To Change Your Password

Changing Your Email Password

It’s easy to change your email password. Here are the steps:

  1. Go to http://webmail.semo.net
  2. Login with your email address and your current password
  3. Click the “Settings” button near the top webmail-settings
  4. Click the “Password” button on the left webmail-password
  5. Enter your old password and your new password (twice) and click “Save”

Using Strong Passwords

SEMO.net encourages all users to have “strong” passwords on all their accounts. There are 4 types of characters we will focus on: lowercase letters, uppercase letter, numbers and symbols like (*@%).  A good password should be at least 10 characters with all four types included.

It is easy it is to make a complex password out of a phrase. For instance, if you like baseball you could use:

I^dlike2PlayBaseball! – which would take 3 septillion years for a PC hacker to crack.

If you use some thought, you can come up with a great password that is very secure.

Here are some guidelines to show you how long it takes to a PC to crack a password of different lengths.

Password Description Crack Time
chevy 5 chars (1 type) less than 1 second
chevy57 7 chars (2 types) 19 seconds
chevy1957 9 chars (2 types) 7 hours
chevY1957 9 chars (3 types) 39 days
chevY1957+any letter/number -> chevY1957b 10 chars (3 types) 6 years
chevY1957+any symbol like $ -> chevY1957$ 10 chars (4 types) 57 years
add another character -> chevY1957$s 11 chars (4 types) 4000 years
and another character -> MychevY1957$ 12 chars (4 types) 344,000 years
EyeLuvMYchevy1957! 18 chars (4 types) 71,000,000,000,000,000 years

Strong Passwords On Phones

The only thing to remember when using smartphones is to keep from switching screens to many times. I sometimes will use 4 letters then 4 numbers then 4 symbols. This means I don’t have to switch back and forth between the keyboard screens too often.