Password Security

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Below are some tips about maintaining the security of your teachers-direct account:

Choosing a good password:

What you choose to use as your password is entirely up to you, the only limitation we place on your password is that it has a minimum of 6 characters. However we suggest you read the following guidelines before choosing your password:

  • Do not use obvious character combinations such as your date of birth or car registration number. Although most of the people around us are entirely trustworthy, all it takes is one bad apple!
  • Do not use repeated characters, sequential characters or keyboard patterns (eg. aaaaaa, 123456 or qwerty) as these are the first guesses of someone trying to hack your account.
  • Do not just use a-z. We recommend that you include at least one number at some point in your password. This increases the number of possible combinations and drastically increases the security of your account.
  • Do include punctuation characters (such as $, & and !). This also increases your password security although also make it harder to remember! This can be overcome by substituting characters that look similar to the letters you would have used. Eg. pa$$w0rd is much more secure that password!
  • Do NOT use example passwords.. pa$$w0rd WAS quite good.. but now it's not, sorry!

Keeping your password secure:

Your teachers-direct password gives you (or anyone else who knows it!) access to all your personal information, such as phone numbers, bank details etc. We therefore recommend you follow the guidelines below to maintain the security of your password.

  • Do not disclose your full password to ANYONE. We at teachers-direct will never ask you for your full password, but will instead ask you for specific digits eg, 3rd and 7th digits. If anyone claiming to be from teachers-direct asks you for your FULL password then please contact us immediately.
  • Do not write down or keep any other record of your password (for instance on your mobile phone) in a way that it can be identified with your teachers-direct account.
  • Do not use the same password as you use for your email account. To protect your security when updating important information such as your bank details we will often send an email asking you to confirm the transaction before we proceed. If someone has both your teachers-direct password and your email password then you may find your hard earned cash disappearing into someone else's account!
  • Do change your password periodically.
  • Do not enter your password into unsecured pages. Before you enter your password into our website please check that there is a padlock symbol (indicating that the page is securely encrypted) in the bottom right hand corner of your browser window. All teachers-direct pages that request or contain personally identifiable data will have this symbol. If you do not see this symbol then do not proceed. Please contact us giving the URL of the page you were on at the time.
  • Do change your password and inform us immediately if you suspect your password has become known to someone else. We can then check your account for any unusual transactions and take the appropriate course of action.

And finally..

  • Do not panic! Although internet fraud and identity theft are becoming more common, the victims are almost always those people who have taken little care in choosing or protecting their security details. We at teachers-direct are confident that if you follow the guidelines above then your use of our site will be secure and trouble free.