“Word is coming in from Europe that Apple is forcing [MobileMe] users with under eight characters and without both a number and a letter to reset their passwords today,” Seth Weintraub reports for 9 to 5 Mac.
“The mandate is an invisible one and some users who don’t meet the criteria are just getting empty login failures,” Weintraub reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Gee, some notice would’ve been nice, Apple! Anyway, Mac OS X helpfully includes an excellent way to create strong passwords:
1. Launch “System Preferences.”
2. Click “Accounts.”
3. Click the lock to make changes.
4. Click “Change Password.”
5. Click the key icon.
6. Password Assistant appears.
7. Use it to create strong passwords and use them! (Don’t actually change your Account password unless you want to.)
To skip steps 1-6, download Code Poetry’s tiny “Password Assistant” which simply calls the Mac OS X Password Assistant dialog on demand. It’s available here. Drop it in your Applications folder and maybe even in your Dock and just click it whenever you need to come up with a good strong password.