NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - What could make you feel more at ease than a picture of your dog, Scruffy?

Bank of America (Research) will require Internet clients to register their computers and assign a digital image, such as a photo of a pet, to their accounts in an effort to cut down on fraud, the bank announced.

The free service, called SiteKey, lets clients pick an image, write a brief phrase and select three challenge questions.

The image will appear on the site every time a customer has to enter a password.

The bank's new approach is intended to assure customers they are signing on to a legitimate site, and is part of an effort to keep out unauthorized people.

"SiteKey helps you know it's us and we know it's you," Sanjay Gupta, consumer and small business e-commerce executive for Bank of America, said in a statement.

The announcement came three months after Bank of America disclosed that it had lost computer backup tapes containing personal information on 1.2 million credit cards belonging to federal employees, including U.S. senators, potentially exposing them to theft or hacking.

The new system is an attempt to guard the bank's 13.2 million online banking customers against Web-based scams like phishing, in which fake e-mails messages that appear to come from banks or other businesses ask recipients for personal info such as passwords or credit-card numbers, often by directing users to phony Web pages designed to look like the real thing.

With SiteKey, customers can "register" frequently-used computers and then when they use one of those computers to access the site, they are shown a picture after entering a username. If the picture matches the image the user chose when setting up the account, the customer knows they are on the legitimate site, and can then enter a password to access accounts.

When customers try to access accounts from a computer that Bank of America doesn't recognize, the image doesn't appear.

Bank of America said its efforts to boost online-banking security are unrelated to the recent loss and theft of customer data, but said the effort is part of a broader strategy to reassure customers that their information is safe.

"We want to take a much more proactive step and give our customers further peace of mind," Gupta said.

The service will launch in Tennessee in mid-June and roll out across the country by the end of the year.

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