Where could identity theft gain access to your personal information?
Identity thieves can access your personal information in a number of ways: some physical, others digital. They can search the mail or trash for credit cards or bank statements, fill out a change of address form to forward your mail to them, and steal your wallet or its contents.
They can also phish information with fake emails or text messages, obtain your information through unsecured websites or public Wi-Fi, and steal electronic records exposed due to a data breach.
Is Identity Theft Protection Worth It?
You can protect yourself against identity theft by taking basic security measures, but an identity protection service can give you some peace of mind, especially if you have overwhelming numbers. online and financial accounts. Identity protection services do the heavy lifting for you by researching possible exposure of your personal information and identifying instances where your data may have been used fraudulently. This makes identity theft protection especially good for people who are not actively monitoring their own credit.
How we choose the best protection against identity theft
We evaluated each vendor’s monitoring services, additional tools and features, refund policies, and customer service to determine which companies offered the best identity theft protection services. We determined that in order for a company to be considered the best, it had to offer the following services: