Disallow special characters in Specops Password Policy

Disallow special characters in Specops Password Policy

In this post, we will demonstrate how to disallow the use of special characters in passwords, in this case Swedish character, by using the “regular expression” setting in Specops Password Policy. Before getting started, ensure that you have installed the Specops Password Policy Administration Tool.

Open the group policy management console, and browse to the GPO you want to edit. Under User Configuration\Policies\Windows Settings you will find Specops Password Policy settings.

Screenshot of Regular expression - configure specops password policy

Click configure Password Policy. Under tab Password Rules you will find regular expression. Tick use regular expression and click the edit button.

Screenshot of Regular expression - Specops password policy 2

screenshot of Regular expression - specops password policy 3

Write in ^[^åäöÅÄÖ]+$ in the regular expression field. You can also write a message for the end user in the client message field.

If  åäöÅÄÖ is in the new password, the user will receive the following feedback.

screenshot of feedback for Regular expression - Specops Password Policy 4

Going forward, the use of åäöÅÄÖ will be disallowed.

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(Last updated on September 26, 2024)

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Marcus White

Marcus is a Specops cybersecurity specialist based in the UK. He’s been in the B2B technology sector for 8+ years and has worked closely with products in email security, data loss prevention, endpoint security, and identity and access management.

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