Comparison of LegalShield’s IDShield versus Norton’s Lifelock

Since the massive COVID-induced shift from traditional office setups to working from home it has become extremely hard to keep work- and private life separate when you manage both from the same computer. There’s bound to be some overflow in both directions.

At the same time, Americans have experienced an unprecedented wave of opportunistic COVID-related fraud schemes. Scammers are more successful than ever before.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, Americans have lost more than $3.3 Billion in fraud during 2020. Imposter scams and identity theft were huge drivers behind this massive increase.

Why do I need Identity theft protection?

Identity thieves steal your personal information and use that to impersonate you. They commit credit card fraud, mortgage and utility scams, empty your bank account, commit health insurance fraud, or, increasingly, they even feed their substance addictions using your medical information to obtain prescriptions for drugs.

Where do identity thieves get my information?

Until recently the most common way to steal someone’s identity was to buy the personal information of your victim on the Dark Web after a big data breach.

Now, due to the proliferation of people search services on the internet, it has become child’s play to match up your name, Social Security number, and home and work address to your credit card details.

Anyone who has your name or email address can access the rest of the needed information with just a few clicks, and go on to wreak wholesale havoc in your life.

How can I keep my information off the internet?

We’ve entered an era where we need to take precautions against identity theft as a matter of daily concern. Thankfully, identity and privacy protection tools have come a long way, and now offer an entire range of services to monitor your online presence, help with credit bureaus and legal advice, and refund you if your identity gets stolen or you get defrauded.

Norton and LegalShield both offer services, and are at the top of their field. Let’s have a look at IDShield vs Lifelock.

Summary: What is LegalShield’s IDShield Identity Theft Protection?

LegalShield is a legal services insurance company that specializes in protecting its customers from overpaying for legal services. IDShield is LegalShield’s identity theft subscription service. IDShield protects you by monitoring your savings and credit score and provides a comprehensive identity restoration service.

IDShield provides the big picture of your identity status. You can easily monitor your credit, social security, and other accounts in one place, and will receive notification of changes to your finances and credit score. IDShield also monitors the dark web to look for unauthorized publication of your or your family’s information, can even scan your social media accounts to check for damaging or unwanted posts, and can help you to remove them.

When something happens you’ll be notified immediately, offered 24/7 emergency assistance to mitigate damage and receive unlimited identity restoration service assistance to get everything back to normal as quickly as possible.

IDShield offers plans for individuals and families, with their Family 3 Bureau Plan being recognized by Forbes Advisor as the “Best for Families” plan. A family plan is an excellent idea for dealing with teenagers’ exuberant oversharing on social media!

Summary: What is Norton 360 with Lifelock Identity Theft Protection?

While IDShield guards against data breaches you must also deal with cyber-threats closer to home. Device and online security are critical for every internet user. Norton 360 with Lifelock provides complete real-time device protection, plus protection against identity theft.

It blocks malware, spam, phishing threats, and will warn you of risky downloads, websites, and dicey websites that appear on your search results. Since kids easily click when a website instructs them to ‘click here’, the added parental controls will reach where you can’t. Norton is confident enough to offer a Virus Protection Promise and will refund you if they can’t remove a virus.

Adblocking protects you from tracking by online advertisers, and bank-grade encryption allows you to safely access public Wi-Fi without the risk of hacking or data theft.

Norton’s proprietary LifeLock technology monitors the online use of your personal information, will alert you to any potential identity threats, and offers a Million Dollar Protection™ package as insurance against financial losses.

Comparison between IDShield and Norton 360 with Lifelock

Both of these products protect against identity theft, but your home and work situation will influence your identity theft protection needs. Full lists of their services are available at IDShield and Norton 360 with LifeLock, but for super-busy TL;DR readers we offer this summary:

Both IDShield and Norton 360 with LifeLock offers:

• Monthly credit score reports from up to 3 bureaus

• Bank Account Alerts

• 24/7 Live Support (IDShield provides access to a licensed Private Investigator)

• Stolen Wallet Protection

• Dark Web Monitoring

• Mobile App

• Social Security Monitoring

IDShield advantages:

• Offers a well-priced bundled family plan including medical record and anti-bullying protection.

• Their identity theft remediation cover and services stretch across all aspects of your professional and personal life and include real estate, family law, accidents, traffic violations, estate planning, consumer finance issues, and even assistance with legal issues when starting your own business.

• IDShield’s unique 24/7 access to a licensed private investigator is hard to beat.

The skinny on IDShield: IDShield focuses more on credit monitoring and affordable legal and incident remedial services than prevention of identity theft prevention or cybersecurity.

LifeLock advantages:

• Norton offers real-time threat protection from cyberthreats, a secure VPN, dark web monitoring, SafeCam personal webcam protection, a range of parental controls, and a generous 500GB cloud back-up for your digital assets.

• Data breach and fictitious Identity monitoring.

• Norton Security for up to five of your Wi-Fi connected devices.

• Generous personal expense compensation (insurance) plans of up to one million dollars.

• Charges separately for each family member, but Norton adds value to their incident insurance services by beefing up your cybersecurity to prevent incidents in the first place.

The skinny on Norton Lifelock: LifeLock focuses on identity theft monitoring services rather than credit monitoring.

What else do I need to protect myself from Identity Theft?

No one should venture onto the internet without endpoint security – ever – and there is a very strong argument for identity theft Insurance and remedial action assistance. However, the root cause of many identity scams can increasingly be traced to our social media habits, and, particularly, the unauthorized publication of our personal information on people-search sites.

The next level of privacy protection is the regular use of an automated people search engine scrubbing service. OneRep regularly scans over a hundred data brokers to check whether your private data has been exposed, and uses an automated removal tool to delete it via a multi-step “opt-out” procedure.

If the website fails to remove your data, OneRep will continue to monitor the site, will repeatedly take action removal steps until they do, and will spring into action when new information appears.

Scrubbing excess personal information from the internet may soon become just as essential as antivirus and identity theft protection.