Protecting Your PC from Identity Theft
BW, along with many other universities, has seen a significant rise this year in email accounts being misused by stealing a person's password. Password theft can happen in many different, and sometimes complex ways, but there is a single and simple method to defend against it. It is called MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication). Many banks, brokerage firms, PayPal, Google, and others have been doing this for several years. One example of MFA that many people are familiar with is where you log in to your bank account using your password (something you know) and then the bank sends you a one-time password to your phone (something you have) to complete the login. Using two very different methods to authenticate who you are, your password and your phone is why it is called MFA.
BW is now giving everyone the option of implementing MFA to access your email using Microsoft's MFA tools. If you would like to use MFA to secure your email, please go to our Be Alert website for instructions (click on the link, click on "MFA", and click on "MFA Start Guide"): https://bealert.bw.edu/i_want_to.html This easy to follow guide, which includes a step by step video from Microsoft, will enable you to protect your email from unauthorized access.