New Procedure for Account Operations at the CERN Service Desk

Who can activate your computing account? Who can unblock it? And who can reset your password if you've forgotten it? Until recently, users who addressed such problems to the Service Desk were asked a set of questions...

The corresponding answers were designed to properly verify the requestor’s identity such that only the real owner could activate/unblock/reset his computing account. However, it turned out that the answers were easily obtainable (and that there is no better set of questions to ask).

Therefore, in order to ensure optimal protection of your account, this procedure will be replaced on 28 November 2011. From that date on, users will be asked to produce a physical ID when requesting the Service Desk to perform operations like computer account activation, account unblocking or password resets. This physical ID can either be a passport/ID card or the CERN access card. If you need to activate/unblock/reset your computing account, you will either have to produce your ID directly at the Service Desk in Building 55, or send a scanned copy to the Service Desk by e-mail (Service-Desk@cern.ch ), attached to your request.

 Alternatively, if your account is not blocked, you can reset your password by yourself, via the account portal , provided you have registered an external email address in advance (via the account portal: http://cern.ch/account -> ‘Manage my accounts’ following the link on the right ‘Provide or update an external email address’ ). (See announcement in CERN Bulletin No. 39.)

For further information, please check our web site (https://cern.ch/security) or contact us at Computer.Security@cern.ch.

by The Computer Security Team