Self-Service Password Reset

Forgotten your password? Throughout the year, one of the most common requests to the Service Desk concerns password resets.  This is especially the case now that we are at the end of the holiday season and many of us return after a long break. Currently, the only way to have your password reset is to call the Service Desk during the week and within the service hours (07:30 to 18:30). Not anymore!

The IT department is putting up a new service that will allow you to reset the password of your primary CERN account by yourself. Note, that you will still be able to request a password reset by calling the Service Desk as usual and that you will still have to do this if your account has been blocked for any reason.  However, the new service provides you with more flexibility and convenience when your memory has failed you.

In order to take advantage of this new service, you must:
  • Have a valid, active account
  • Register in advance an external email address, so that an activation link can be sent to you.

An external email address can be any address from a service provider (e.g. gmail, hotmail, etc) or one provided by your institute. If you do not have yet such an external address registered, we strongly recommend you to do it as soon as possible by going to the account portal: http://cern.ch/account -> ‘Manage my accounts’ and follow the link on the right ‘Provide or update an external email address’.

Once your external address is defined, resetting your password yourself is easy.  All you have to do is to follow the link http://cern.ch/passwordreset and you will be guided through the process. You will have to provide your account login name, date of birth and enter a verification code. Subsequently, an activation link will be sent to your external email address. The sender will always be: ‘CERN Account Website’ and the subject of the message ‘Reset your CERN Account password’.

The activation link will only be valid for ten minutes. During that time you should follow the link and complete the process by defining a new password. Please consider the recommendations (http://security.web.cern.ch -> 'Passwords & toothbrushes') by Computer Security when choosing a new password. 

Note that this service will be available as of the 26th of September and that about 35% of active users can already take advantage of it since they have registered an external email address. So why wait?

by IT department