Keeping your account secure

Useful advice

You should keep your LJMU account details as secure as any other computing accounts you may have. Here's some common sense security tips:

  • Your password must be at least 10 characters long.
    • The longer your password the better, but choose something you will remember.
    • Consider using a passphrase.
    • Alternatively consider using a combination of three random words, as recommended by the National Cyber Security Centre.
  • Consider using a mixture of lower and upper-case letters, numbers and special characters.
    • Special characters allowed:
      • A – Z
      • a - z
      • 0 – 9
      • @ # $ % ^ & * - _ ! + = [ ] { } |  : ' , . ? / ` ~ " ( ) ; < >
      • Blank space
  • Do not base your password on information that can be easily discovered from social media, such as names of family members or pets, dates of birth or favourite sports teams.
  • LJMU uses a banned password list.  If your password meets the length requirement but is still rejected, you may have chosen a password on the banned list.
    • Your password cannot contain your name, or your username.
    • You cannot choose any of the most common weak passwords, such as ‘password’.  (This includes common variants, such as ‘P@$$w0rd’)
  • Do not write your password down.
  • NEVER tell anyone your password.

Your username and password are your responsibility. You must never allow anyone else to use your account - to do so will result in a sanction on your computing facilities and could lead to disciplinary action.

Will LJMU ever ask me for my password?

No - we will NEVER ask you for your password, either over the phone, or by email. 

Be aware

If you ever receive an email that appears to be from LJMU asking you to provide your username and password via email do not respond. Whilst the email may look as though it has come from LJMU, it's an example of a "phishing" email, used to gain access to your account details.

Email sending limitations

To minimise the risk of abuse of the LJMU email system, a maximum of 300 unique recipients can be emailed within a 24-hour period. Nb: a distribution list counts as one recipient. The vast majority of users will not be affected by this limitation, however if the limit is exceeded, a warning notice will be displayed in Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Outlook Webmail.

Useful Information:

"Phishing" emails can look like a legitimate email, and will usually be asking you to provide sensitive information, or may ask you to pay a fee. They can contain common phrases such as:

  • "Verify your account."
  • "If you don't respond within 48 hours, your account will be closed."
  • "Dear Valued Customer."
  • "Click the link below to gain access to your account."

If you receive such an email please do not click on the link, just delete it immediately.