Learn about Identity Theft Monitoring and Protection Services.
Image source – pixabay.com
According to the Insurance Information Institute, 1 in 15 people is a victim of identity theft, while 1 out of 5 of those experience it more than once.
And while you read that sentence, at least 1 more person fell victim to identity theft because an attack is successful every 2 seconds.
Are you convinced yet?
In this article, you will understand what identity theft is, how do you tell whether you are a victim of it, what your protection options are, and others.
Table of Contents
In 2017, Equifax, an American credit reporting agency, announced they had a data breach that revealed the personal information of 147 million people.
A vulnerability in the Equifax web application was exploited, and, as a result, the leakage uncovered names, SSNs, birthdays, addresses, credit card information, and others. With that information, hackers can, in their target's name:
And many others.
It is very important to understand:
Identity theft is an attack in which someone steals your private data and uses it to impersonate you in order to gain benefits.
It is an extremely dangerous type of attack because it may take a while before you notice that something is wrong.
And because identity theft comes in many forms, it is hard to keep track of all of them.
Plus, attackers keep coming with more and more creative ways to impersonate and benefit off of their targets.
Here are some of the ways in which hackers can use your personal information to profit off of you:
In this kind of attack, people who own your private data can, in your name:
When performing medical theft, hackers may:
Tax Theft involves an attacker that fills a tax return in your name and collects the refund.
In these types of attacks, fraudsters will use you to:
This is similar to Financial Theft but uses the fact that children probably do not have financial accounts opened in their name already. This makes the hacker’s job easier because it is harder to detect it.
Identity Theft services are designed to alert you when they find traces of you and your identity on the Internet.
Such services can offer Identity Monitoring, Credit Monitoring, Identity Protection, Identity Insurance.
In essence, if you have Identity Monitoring, your personal information is checked against various databases and websites, including those on the Dark Web.
We will look at some of the Identity Theft services available and compare them.
Tool
|
Pricing
|
PROs
|
CONs
|
---|---|---|---|
Identity Guard
|
$80-$200/year
|
-uses Artificial Intelligence when scanning articles
-provides Safe Browsing
|
-base program doesn’t include credit monitoring
-no free trial period
|
Identity Force
|
$99.9-$179.9/year
|
-has a wide selection of places to look for identity theft
-has a phone application that also monitors your phone
-30 days trial period
|
-base program doesn’t include credit monitoring
|
LifeLock
|
$99-$299/year
|
-$25,000 - $1 million insurance
-base program includes credit monitoring
-60 days trial period
|
-generally more expensive
|
ID Watchdog
|
$14.95-$21.95/month
|
-$1 million identity theft insurance
|
-you are only protected if you are an active customer
-base program doesn’t include credit monitoring
-no free trial period
|
In the image below, you can see three examples of alerts taken from three different vendors. The first one incorporates two alerts in the Identity Guard phone application; the second one is a screenshot of the LifeLock application with an alert regarding a Mortgage application, and the third one is from IdentityForce and shows a credit card transaction.
Image source – identityguard.com
Image source – lifelock.com
Image source - identityforce.com
The services I have presented are among the most popular and most used. If you want to use an Identity Theft Protection service, you should take into consideration your budget and the company’s plans and make sure it fits your needs.
The good thing is that most of these plans do provide a free trial period, so make sure to check that out.
The problem with these services is that they basically cannot prevent a successful identity theft attack against you. They only help you find out if you have become a victim already.
Whether you become the victim of identity theft is partially up to you - as explained in the previous chapter, you always have to be on the lookout for phishing emails and other threats.
Keep reading to find out how to protect yourself without getting Identity Theft services plans (or at least to complete them).
Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't get such a service. If you consider you are at high risk or you just want to be sure you have some kind of backup plan doing a part of the work for you, you should get a plan.
These services will give you alerts whenever they detect something suspicious. However, you should be aware that such services do not, generally, for example:
Here are some good practices that you should follow to avoid becoming a victim of Identity Theft.
I have prepared an infographic to summarize this article and once again accentuate how dangerous is an identity theft attack.
You can see some of the many forms it takes and a few measures that you should implement to be safe. The purpose is to understand that Identity Theft Monitoring and Protection services are not enough and should be accompanied by other actions.
Feel free to share the code of infographics
Identity theft is a very dangerous type of attack. You can go years without knowing that someone is profiting off of you.
On top of that, you don't know what an attacker does with your data. They might be selling it to others on the Dark Web, which could lead to even worse consequences for you.
Identity theft services can be useful to detect some actions taken by hackers against you, but they should always be complemented by your protective measures because they are not enough.
You should:
And others.
Have you ever used an Identity Theft Service? If so, please tell us how that worked for you.
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