Hi, If the password is not enclosed in quotes then it can include any letter, any digit, "_", "#" or "$" characters. Only a letter can be used in the first character, the other characters can be used after that. If on the other hand you enclose the password in quotes then you can use any character in any position. Lets see some examples: Connected to: Personal Oracle9i Release 9.2.0.1.0 - Production With the Partitioning, OLAP and Oracle Data Mining options JServer Release 9.2.0.1.0 - Production SQL> SQL> connect sys/a@sans as sysdba Connected. SQL> -- create a user with the valid character set SQL> create user test01 identified by abc123_$#; User created. SQL> -- change his password again with the valid character set SQL> alter user test01 identified by abc456#_$; User altered. SQL> -- try and create a user with a password that does not start SQL> -- with a letter SQL> create user test02 identified by 123abc#_$; create user test02 identified by 123abc#_$ * ERROR at line 1: ORA-00988: missing or invalid password(s) SQL> -- It fails as you should only be able to create a user with SQL> -- a password starting with a letter SQL> -- now try with a password starting with one of the three SQL> -- special characters. SQL> create user test02 identified by _123abc; create user test02 identified by _123abc * ERROR at line 1: ORA-00911: invalid character SQL> -- another failure, this time an invalid character. Now try and SQL> -- create a user with special characters but not valid ones. SQL> create user test02 identified by abc123^*; create user test02 identified by abc123^* * ERROR at line 1: ORA-00922: missing or invalid option SQL> -- OK, fails again as expected but this time a different error SQL> -- message. Next try and create a user with any special characters SQL> -- but this time enclosed in quotes. This should work. SQL> create user test02 identified by "^*abc£"; User created. SQL> -- it works as expected. Now try an alter user again with any SQL> -- special characters. SQL> alter user test02 identified by "%$ghj^"; User altered. SQL> -- again it works as expected. The above examples show that you can use letters, digits and _#$ without quotes and any character with quotes both for create statements and also for alter user statements. It is also possible to use control characters in passwords to make it difficult to use the password on the command line such as carriage returns. Kind regards Pete -- Pete Finnigan (email:pete@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) Web site: http://www.petefinnigan.com - Oracle security audit specialists Oracle security blog: http://www.petefinnigan.com/weblog/entries/index.html Book:Oracle security step-by-step Guide - see http://store.sans.org for details. -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l