Securely manage accounts
Your online accounts allow you to perform a number of different tasks including banking, shopping, and reading email. In order to uniquely associate you with a particular service, each of these accounts relies on some of your personal information; they might require your name, address, credit card or bank account number, or even your Social Security number. A compromised account could lead to the exposure of this information and account misuse or even identity theft.
User accounts on all systems have authorizations, or privileges that allow them to perform certain actions. Administrator user priviliges—the kind used to install software and make other system changes—are often needed by hackers to exploit vulnerabilities in your system. Restricting user account authorizations will help prevent unauthorized changes to your device's files and configurations.
Securely manage your accounts by practicing safe computing habits.
Requirements
Faculty and staff are responsible for ensuring that the accounts they use for University activities, including their UDelNet accounts and device accounts, are secure and used appropriately.
- Protect University accounts with strong and unique passwords.
- Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) for your UDelNet account.
- Do not share passwords with other individuals.
- Do not use your UDelNet password for other accounts or services.
- Use the University's computer management service to manage administrator account access and security-related processes.
- Use only University accounts, not personal accounts, for University purposes.
- Do not authorize cloud applications to use your Google Apps at UD credentials or data.
- Do not use administrator accounts for day-to-day purposes.
- Grant access to multi-user systems based on that person's need to use that system, and remove access and profiles when they are no longer needed.
General guidelines
- Protect your accounts with strong and unique passwords.
- Do not share your accounts or passwords.
- Use 2FA for your accounts when available.
- Use the principle of least privilege: your day-to-day computing accounts should have only the minimum necessary privileges for whatever tasks you routinely perform. Use a separate and secure administrator account to install software or updates or to perform tasks requiring elevated privileges.
- Provide only the minimum necessary information when creating new accounts. Remove or censor unnecessary information on current accounts, including social networking accounts.
- Create a new user account for anyone to whom you loan your device, and delete that account when the device is returned.
