At PCMag, we like to see identity theft protection paired with a powerful device-level security suite, but you can choose to obtain identity protection separately. Since 2005, LifeLock has offered such protection, and it continues to grow its monitoring and remediation abilities. Testing its full powers would require committing identity theft, which would be unwise (if not illegal). As such, we can’t offer a quantified rating of its efficacy, which is why there's no score on this page. But to help you gauge whether LifeLock is worth it for you, read on for our comprehensive overview of how it works and what you can expect when you subscribe.
Note that upgrading from LifeLock alone to a Norton 360 With LifeLock subscription costs between $10 and $30 per year. Before springing for a standalone LifeLock subscription, you should consider opting for the corresponding Norton 360 bundle; it’s quite a bargain.
What Identity Protection Services Can and Can't Do
Despite the name, identity theft protection services like LifeLock don't so much protect your identity as they detect and warn you of possible attacks on your identity and give you the tools to respond. They alert you to instances where your identity may have been compromised and provide the means to help repair the damage. Yes, such apps can help protect against changes to your credit, work history, and more. That said, it’s all but impossible to totally prevent identity theft. And LifeLock doesn't claim to do so.
What LifeLock and its ilk can do is give you warnings about small problems before they lead to big disasters. By watching your credit reports and monitoring black market sources, they can make you aware of accounts opened in your name and passwords you might need to change, for example.
The biggest value that these services provide is remediation. LifeLock employs experts to do the heavy lifting of trying to get your life back together after identity theft. As anyone who's ever been through the process knows, it can be an extremely heavy lift. LifeLock might not be able to fix everything, but there's solace in knowing you're not alone in the process. As with home security systems, a good part of what you pay for is peace of mind.
How Much Does a LifeLock Subscription Cost?
LifeLock subscriptions come in three distinct tiers: Standard, Advantage, and Ultimate Plus. At the Standard level, LifeLock costs $124.99 per year. Advantage runs $239.99 per year, adding features not available at the Standard level. To get every possible identity monitoring and remediation feature from LifeLock, you need the $339.99 Advanced Plus level.
All these prices are for one individual’s protection. To protect yourself and your partner, you need a Family plan. Don’t expect a volume discount, though. Family plan prices are simply twice the individual price. You can also add limited identity protection for up to five children by opting for a Family & Kids plan, which adds from $100 to $120 to the price of a Family plan. LifeLock pricing tops out at LifeLock Ultimate Plus for Family & Kids, which costs $799.99 per year.
When combined with device-level protection, the three LifeLock tiers correspond to Norton 360 With LifeLock Select, Norton 360 With LifeLock Advantage, and Norton 360 With LifeLock Ultimate Plus. Despite the difference in name, identity features in LifeLock Standard precisely match what you get in Norton 360 With LifeLock Select.
It's Surprisingly Easy to Be More Secure OnlineAs mentioned, upgrading from LifeLock on its own to a Norton 360 With LifeLock subscription is between $10 and $30 per year, which is a very good deal.
Several other security suite companies make their identity protection services available separately, typically at a lower price than Norton. A standalone version of the identity protection you get in Avast One Platinum runs $99.99 per year, for example. The identity-only service corresponding to Bitdefender Ultimate Security costs $129.99 per year, as does Trend Micro ID Protection Plus.
The simple fact is that LifeLock costs more than most of its competition, especially at the highest protection levels. But you get what you pay for.
Getting Started With LifeLock
Buying a LifeLock subscription is a little more complicated than buying an antivirus or security suite. You must submit your credit card details for payment, of course, but it also asks for your address, Social Security number, date of birth, and mobile phone number. Get used to giving LifeLock all your personal details, as it needs them to protect you. There's an invitation to extend LifeLock protection to your spouse, children, or other adults (at an extra cost, of course). Choose monthly or yearly billing, indicate whether you want alerts via phone call or text message, and you've completed the initial setup steps.
(Credit: LifeLock)With your subscription established, you can log in to the LifeLock online dashboard. A menu down the left side offers eight options: Dashboard, Alerts, Credit Services, Lock & Freeze, Transactions, Restoration, Monitored Info, and Plan Details. You may see advice panels across the top. For example, my test installation advised setting up Identity Lock and linking my social media accounts.
Scroll down the rest of the dashboard to find a collection of informational panels. On the Credit Services tab, you can see your Equifax credit score and a link for more details. The Identity Lock panel shows whether you’ve engaged the TransUnion Credit Lock, the Payday Loan Lock, or both. Once you’ve configured Transaction Monitoring, Social Media Monitoring, and Privacy Monitor, you’ll see a summary of those features here. Next is a panel that links to your Plan Details, and at the bottom is a visual representation of what information LifeLock is monitoring.
(Credit: LifeLock)Forewarned Is Forearmed
The worst thing about identity theft is that it can happen completely without your knowledge. You may be completely unaware until you get a bill for a mortgage you never signed or get arrested for a crime someone else committed. LifeLock offers a wide variety of early-warning monitors and tools so you can head off identity thieves before they do too much harm.
Identity Monitoring for Everyone
Even at the Standard level, LifeLock monitors the Dark Web for your personal information. It also notifies you when your personal data shows up in a known data breach. You can track:
5 addresses
10 bank accounts
1 birthdate
10 credit cards
1 driver’s license
5 emails
10 gamer tags
5 insurance policies
1 mother’s maiden name
5 phone numbers
1 SSN
You should definitely take the time to fill in all your personal information. Norton can’t find your data being traded on the Dark Web if it doesn’t know what to look for.
(Credit: LifeLock)If someone is misusing your identity details, there’s a good chance their misdeeds might affect your credit scores. LifeLock monitors your credit score with Experian and lets you know of any suspicious changes.
An attempt to open credit in your name is a big red flag. LifeLock watches for such attempts, noting any that use your social security number, address, or date of birth. It also warns you when it detects a change of address with financial institutions or the USPS. And it does its best to detect misuse of your personal information in a variety of other areas, including public records and unemployment records.
(Credit: LifeLock)Advanced Identity Monitoring
One of the worst consequences of identity theft occurs when malefactors gain access to your financial accounts. At the Advanced level, LifeLock (through partner Yodlee) monitors your credit, checking, and savings accounts for anomalous transactions and large purchases. To set up monitoring, you provide the username and login for each of your banks. You can review all transactions from within the service. LifeLock uses read-only access to display your recent transactions, much the way Mint.com works.
(Credit: LifeLock)It also looks for trickier chicanery, like recurring charges that suddenly increase. Aura, Bitdefender, and IDShield also track anomalous transactions, though Bitdefender reserves that feature for its highest tier.
But what if the charge happens long before you’re aware of it with a Buy Now Pay Later plan? LifeLock now tracks these as well, so you can head off the charge before it comes due.
At the Advanced level, you get more than just credit score tracking. LifeLock presents you with your entire credit report from Equifax every month. It’s a lot of information to swallow, but if you’ve gotten other alerts or warnings, you’ll want to peruse it in detail.
Sometimes, identity thieves don’t go straight for the money. They start small, working toward a complete takeover of your identity. LifeLock monitors your social media accounts for any evidence of a compromise. Bitdefender, IDShield, and IDX Complete all have their own takes on social media privacy. With LifeLock, you can connect your Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, or Snapchat accounts.
(Credit: LifeLock)LifeLock keeps an eye on your phone in case the bad guys attempt a takeover using a SIM swap attack or similar technique. IDShield and McAfee offer similar protection against phone takeover. Fictitious Identity Monitoring alerts you if your SSN is misused.
I mentioned the possibility that you might be arrested for a crime someone else committed. Hey, it happens, especially if you have a common name. Even if your name is Aloysius Finsternisherman, a perp could give that name to the police. LifeLock monitors crime reports, so you’ll have an early warning if this fate befalls you.
Identity Monitoring at the Ultimate Plus Level
Going for LifeLock’s top-tier protection gets you some new types of monitoring, plus enhancements to those at the previous level. For example, in addition to monitoring for crimes committed in your name, it keeps an eye on sex offender registries. You really don’t want to suffer for someone else’s impropriety.
At its basic level, social media monitoring looks for evidence of account takeover. For top-tier users, it alerts on evidence of cyberbullying, and its tracking extends to TikTok.
Transaction monitoring expands as well. In addition to credit, checking, and savings accounts, it looks for “off” transactions in 401k and other investment accounts. It also keeps an eye out for new checking and savings accounts opened using your personal information.
You may have seen some scary TV ads about how someone could sneakily transfer the title of your home to their name and thereby gain ownership. LifeLock's Home Title Monitoring warns of several different variations of that attack.
(Credit: LifeLock)As for keeping track of your credit score and reports, Ultimate Plus users get ultimate access. LifeLock provides a daily score from Equifax with regular reports. Once a year, it grabs your report from all three bureaus. You could go get those reports yourself for free, but LifeLock automates the process.
Data Broker Opt-Out
Much of LifeLock’s monitoring is devoted to illegal use of your personal information, but not all use of your info is illegal. Data brokers hoover up data from publicly available sources on the internet and aggregate their findings into persona profiles, which they can then sell. Doing so is legal, but the companies must comply with requests to remove your data to stay on the right side of the law. Of course, before you can make that opt-out request, you must know which brokers have your data.
LifeLock’s Privacy Monitor component aims to help. It scans several dozen data broker sites and reports which of them have gathered your personal information. As for sending the opt-out request, that’s something you must take care of yourself. LifeLock won’t handle removals automatically unless you spring for the Privacy Monitor Assistant, a separate subscription at $129.99 per year. Yes, that’s more than the price of LifeLock Standard. It’s also worth noting that you don’t even need LifeLock to get that initial scan. You can do it online from the Privacy Monitor Assistant web page.
(Credit: LifeLock)As far as I can tell, this feature is significantly less effective than dedicated data-broker opt-out services like Privacy Bee and Optery. Both offer a free scan, like Norton’s. Privacy Bee quickly checked hundreds of sites and found my information on 46 of them. Optery’s free level, which doesn’t check every site managed by paid subscriptions, found 21. As for LifeLock, it found just one.
Optery’s basic paid tier automates removal from more than 110 sites and costs about a third of the price of Norton Privacy Monitor Assistant. Privacy Bee costs more, $197 per year, but at that level, it provides automated opt-out for more than 430 sites. And as noted, both are more effective than LifeLock at the free level. I don’t see this feature adding a lot to LifeLock.
Deep-Freeze Your Data
It’s good to get a warning when identity bandits are trying to meddle with your finances or personal data. But it’s even better to lock up your personal items so meddling isn’t possible. Most of these protective features are available at all protection tiers.
The Freeze Center offers instructions and access to initiating a credit freeze with all three of the big credit bureaus. You must follow the instructions and do the job yourself, but LifeLock offers clear instructions. Those subscribing at the Advanced level or higher can also invoke TransUnion’s Identity Lock system. With Identity Lock in place, nobody can open a new account or Payday loan. If you need to open such an account yourself, you just turn off the lock.
In addition to credit bureau freezes, LifeLock helps you freeze bank account creation (by going through a service called ChexSystems) and the opening of bogus utility accounts by registering with the National Consumer Telecom & Utilities Exchange (NCTUE). This page also links to an IRS page where you can set up an Identity Protection PIN to keep fraudsters from filing taxes in your name (and claiming your refund).
(Credit: LifeLock)All LifeLock subscribers have access to the new Employment Data Freeze and Work Number Freeze. The former freezes the use of your SSN to verify employment, while the latter performs a similar freeze on Equifax’s Work Number verification system.
Help Recovering From Identity Theft
Even with all the warnings, and even with freezing all the data you can, there's always the chance that a clever hacker or thief could gain control of your identity. If LifeLock warns of a possible problem, or if you notice something out of the ordinary, LifeLock Identity Restoration Specialists are available to help you track down just what happened and claw your personal life back from the identity thieves. I’ve seen references to 24/7 remediation, but in fact, the experts are available during business hours.
At its simplest, this service walks you through recovery from a stolen wallet. That includes getting replacements for credit cards, insurance cards, driver's licenses, and more. Yes, you could grind through this process on your own, but having an expert at hand surely eases the pain.
If your identity and reputation have been damaged, LifeLock will pay for recovery and remediation. That includes reimbursement for stolen funds and payments to lawyers and other experts, among other things. According to my LifeLock contacts, the company pays out the needed funds and then recovers money from its own insurance partner, meaning you deal only with LifeLock. They also stated that there are no shared limits, sub-limits, or caps on expert and lawyer feeds. Such limits are standard for most similar services.
At all levels, LifeLock subscribers get the remediation services described above. The difference lies in just how much is covered. Standard, Advantage, and Ultimate Plus subscribers all get up to $1 million for lawyers and experts. Standard users can receive up to $25,000 for stolen funds reimbursement and another $25,000 for personal expense compensation. Those figures both rise to $100,000 at the Advanced level and $1 million for Ultimate Plus. If you’re not sure exactly what you’re entitled to, just click Plan Details and scroll down to see the particulars for each plan component.
(Credit: LifeLock)The two upper tiers of McAfee+, Advanced and Ultimate, include a million-dollar guarantee. Like Norton, McAfee aims to prevent identity theft, but if the worst happens, you get the same kind of treatment, including your own case worker and a variety of reimbursement possibilities. However, there are separate limits on things like how much you can be reimbursed for lost wages, childcare, and such. Most competitors match that million-dollar guarantee; some double it. Most have limitations that LifeLock does not.
You’ll also want to scroll to the very bottom of the Monitored Information page and set a Verbal Passcode to be used when you contact LifeLock on the phone. That passcode makes sense; the last thing you want to do is review your most private details with a fake LifeLock agent.
Keep Your Children’s Identities Safe
As noted earlier, if you’ve opted for a family subscription (covering you and an adult partner), you can extend protection to your children (up to five) for between $100 and $120 per year, depending on your subscription tier. Granted, your kids don’t have bulging bank accounts ripe for robbery, but scammers can use identity elements like their SSNs. The consequences may not show up for years, yielding a nasty surprise when your child applies for a credit card or a job.
The protection LifeLock offers for a child is naturally quite limited compared to its full-on adult protection. Perhaps the most important is the ability to freeze your child’s credit, preventing the opening of accounts using their personal information. LifeLock also keeps track of any credit reports associated with your child’s information. The mere existence of a credit report can be a sign of identity theft.
Finally, with your child’s cooperation, LifeLock can monitor social media for cyberbullying and other problems. It notifies you, the parent, on detecting posts that may be "sexually explicit, drug-related, violent or hate speech."
LifeLock Mobile App
The LifeLock Mobile App for Android and iOS looks a lot like the LifeLock online dashboard, just arranged for mobile display. A banner at the top reports unread alerts and gives you links to details. Four panels arranged below cover Credit Monitoring, Identity Lock, Financial Transactions, and Personal Information. Naturally, tapping a panel drills in for details.
(Credit: LifeLock)Below these four panels are banners for Social Media Monitoring, ID Restoration, and Plan Details. You can use the apps to triage alerts from the service, see your credit report information, check what information is being monitored, and quickly get access to support.
Should You Lock Down Your Identity LifeLock?
LifeLock's sprawling list of features is continually growing. Some of its capabilities are unique in the industry, and it packages them neatly within a smartly designed website. Its prices are a bit higher than most competitors, but it also offers more. While the recovery assistance services are valuable, the reimbursement plans that help you financially recover from identity theft are sure to provide peace of mind to many customers. If it sounds like the right service for you, we strongly suggest that you consider Norton 360 With LifeLock, which adds thorough cross-platform security to the mix for not much more money, earning it our Editors' Choice award for security suites.
