“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” When Benjamin Franklin penned this enduring phrase nearly three centuries ago, he was advising the public on how to avoid house fires. But his words are also useful when applied to a modern safety issue: identity theft.
By some estimates, roughly one-third of U.S. residents have experienced some form of identity theft—a crime that includes everything from credit card theft to tax fraud to insurance fraud—and that figure is expected to rise. For some consumers, the instinct is to turn to a familiar brand such as Norton, Equifax or McAfee for protection. Each of them offers something different, and you can subscribe to one of their plans for yourself or your family for just a few dollars a month (or in some cases, for free).
But do ID theft protection services really work? It depends on what you’re looking for. Identity theft plans typically include some combination of account monitoring, alerts and restoration support. In other words, they don’t stop criminals from targeting you—they just respond to identity theft once it has happened.
“ID protection services largely entail cleanup rather than prevention,” says Mitch Mayne, a cybersecurity consultant and former incident responder for IBM Security X-Force. “While these services can offer some benefits to victims, they also create a false sense of security, which leads users to neglect basic cyber hygiene.”
According to Aura, a company that provides identity theft protection plans, you don’t necessarily need ID protection services. “While monitoring and fraud alerts are valuable ways to protect your identity, they don’t do anything you can’t do on your own,” Aura’s website says.
If you do decide to pay for ID protection, keep in mind that not all plans are created equal. The best plans come with tried-and-true, unfussy features such as VPNs, which hide your IP address and encrypt your data while you browse the internet, and password managers, which generate and store unique passwords for each of your accounts. A password manager may be the most valuable offering.
“Sign-in credentials are frequently compromised and quickly sold on the dark web,” says Mayne, “so a password manager can provide some solid risk mitigation.”
Many plans, however, are packed with flashy features that may not deliver, such as identity theft insurance, which typically covers the costs you incur during the recovery process but doesn’t cover your financial losses, and live restoration support, which gives you access to live customer service agents after you experience an identity theft incident or receive an alert that your information may have been compromised.
“It can be incredibly difficult to get an insurance claim approved by an ID theft monitoring company,” Mayne warns, “and even with their help responding to an incident, it can take years to get your money back and restore your identity. For some people, the damage is never fully undone.”
