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Character (Granular) Rules

Password Policy Enforcer has seven Character rules that reject passwords if they contain, or do not contain certain characters. These rules can increase password strength or ensure password compatibility with other systems.

All the Character rules work identically, but each has their own default character set. A character set is the collection of characters that each rule searches for when checking a password. You can use the Character rules with their default character sets, or define your own. By default, the Password Policy Enforcer selects the Password Policy Enforcer character on the Set Priorities page.

  • Enable the Characters (Granular) button to enable the Characters rule.

  • Character First – Select character rule(s) for the first character of password

    • Select the Begin option if this rule should ensure that first character of password should start with the certain characters of the selected rule(s).
    • Select Not Begin option if this rule should ensure that the first character of password should not start with the certain characters of the selected rule(s).

  • Character Last – Select character rule(s) for the last character password

    • Select the End option if this rule should ensure that the last character of password should end with the certain characters of the selected rule(s).
    • Select the Not End option if this rule should ensure that the last chracter of password should not end the certain character of the selected rule(s).

  • Characters (Alpha Lower), Characters (Alpha Upper), Character (Alpha), Character (Custom), Characters (High), Characters (Numeric), character (Special)

    For each selected character rule, select whether they Contain or Not contain the specified number of characters.

    • Select the contain option if this rule should ensure that new passwords contain certain characters. Only one character is required by default, but you can specify a different value by choosing the required number of characters from the drop-down list beside the contain option.
    • Select the not contain any... option if this rule should ensure that new passwords do not contain certain characters.

    You can further restrict the rule by defining positions or embedding characters. Click the + sign by the character set.

    • Select In position

      If you want to restrict this rule to certain character positions, choose the starting position from the first entry box and the ending position from the second entry box. For example, you may want to enforce a rule that requires a numeric character in the second character position to maintain compatibility with some other system.

    • Select Embedded

      Select the Embedded check box if users are required to embed these characters within their passwords. For example, the passwords "12hello", "1hello", and "hello$987" do not contain any embedded numeric characters, but these passwords do contain embedded numeric characters (shown in bold type): "he7llo", "4he3llo", "23hello7$45". Embedded numeric and special characters can help to protect passwords from cracking attacks.

Enforcing Complex Character Requirements​

Character rules can be combined to enforce complex password requirements. For example, you may need to enforce a policy such as "passwords must contain a numeric character, but not in the first two positions" to ensure compatibility with some other system.

This is done by using two of the Character rules:

Set Characters (Complexity) to require 1 Numeric character.

Set Characters (Granular) to not contain numeric values in the first two positions.