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Security & Fraud

Tip 1

BND has your security in mind as we handle your information, but you can protect your account by creating a strong password. Here’s a way to create a password that’s very hard to crack by following these steps:

  1. Think of a phrase or sentence with at least eight words. It should be something easy for you to remember but hard for someone who knows you to guess. It could be a line from a favorite poem, story, movie, song lyric, or quotation you like. Example: “I Want To Put A Dent In The Universe”
  2. Remove all but the first letter of each word in your phrase: IWTPADITU
  3. Replace several of the upper-case letters with lowercase ones, at random: iWtpADitU
  4. Now substitute a number for at least one of the letters. (Here, we’ve changed the capital “I” to the numeral 1: iWtpAD1tU
  5. Finally, use special characters ( $, &, +, !, @) to replace a letter or two — preferably a letter that is repeated in the phrase. You can also add an extra character to the mix. (Here, we’ve replaced the “t” with “+”, and added an exclamation point at the end.): iW+pAD1tU!
 

Tip 2

Check the strength of your password with an online tool. While none of them will guarantee an unbreakable password, they are a good double-check. If your password is not strong enough, add some more characters at the end like adding a / or !. This is one reliable site to use:  https://howsecureismypassword.net/. If you would like to learn more about how easy it is to crack weak passwords, check out this YouTube video.

 

Tip 3

There are good password manager software products on the market today. Some are free; none are very expensive. Using one of these products, you can create truly random, very long, and unique passwords for each site, and because the software will remember them for you, you never have to worry about what your password is. Your password manager will store and encrypt the passwords for you, and log you in automatically. You will have vastly improved security, with only one master password to remember.