One of the main focus points for IT Services this year—and, if we’re being honest, every year—is security in all its forms (cyber, information, and physical). As we continue our launch schedule of our brand-new identity governance and administration tool, RapidIdentity, we are making some exciting improvements!

We’re starting with passwords! You have by now seen the news that our Password Utilities tool has a new shiny interface, a marked improvement from the previous website. Beginning Friday, June 28, 2024, every Miami person will be required to have a non-Miami recovery email listed in the MUnet Password Utilities system.

Why do we need to have a recovery email for our Miami account?

Imagine this: You’ve forgotten your password. At Miami, we have two ways of recovering passwords when they’ve been forgotten:

1. Send a passcode to your phone via SMS
2. Send a code to a recovery email address on file

Most Miami users have one of these two options set up. However, if you forget your password but don’t have either option, you would have to contact IT Help to get back into your Miami account. This can be time consuming and frustrating, especially if you are trying to get back into your Miami account in a hurry—such as during exam week!

Simply put, requiring the non-Miami recovery email allows you to reset your password yourself. You don’t have to wait on the phone, and you don’t have to rifle through all your documents to find copies of your driver’s license.

Improving security one step at a time

A huge part of information security is employing effective identity verification methods. For example, if you want to change your password for your online banking profile, you need to log in to the system first to prove that you are the owner of the account. We apply the same principles to your Miami account – by providing a non-Miami recovery email address, not only will changing your password be simpler and quicker, it will be a more secure process… because we’ll be sure it’s you.

The good news…

If you already have a recovery email address in the system, you don’t have to worry about a thing.

If you don’t already have a recovery email in the system, your experience will be a little different. After June 28, the next time you log in to the MUnet Password Utilities tool at MiamiOH.edu/password, you will be asked to provide a non-Miami recovery email address. In fact, we recommend going ahead and doing that now so that you don’t have to worry about it in the future!

Thank you for helping us improve information security at Miami!