Protecting your identity and ensuring the financial well-being of yourself and your family should be a high priority. Identity theft and fraud are continuing to grow. More than 5.7 million fraud and identity theft crimes have been reported to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) so far in 2023.[1]

The good news is that there are several solutions available to help you protect your identity, including your online presence, your credit and Social Security number, and your overall identity. These services look at various sources to see if your identity has been stolen and used on a platform where you may not have access to find the fraudster.

Aura is one identity theft service that we particularly like. Aura offers solutions for individuals, couples, and families to help them protect their future. We liked that Aura had easy-to-understand plans that focused on the number of people you’re protecting, and every plan is packed full of additional services to make your life easier.

Let’s see why we found Aura to be such a great identity theft protection solution.

Aura review at a glance

All of Aura’s plans provide a foundation of identity theft protection, including credit monitoring, SSN monitoring, and at least $1 million in identity theft protection to help offset any identity theft losses. Your biggest decision when choosing an Aura plan is deciding how many people you want to protect.

The Aura Family plan is the most robust and protects up to five adults and an unlimited number of children. The Family plan also includes features to help you protect your children online and offline, too, like the Safe Gaming feature.

Safe Gaming gives parents peace of mind by alerting them to cyberbullying inside 200 of the most popular PC games. Aura monitors in-game voice and text chats and alerts parents of scams or cyberbullying their kids might encounter.

Aura identity theft protection pros and cons

What does Aura protect against?

Aura protects a range of personal information to help protect your identity. Here is a list of everything Aura protects for you.

• Online account theft
• Identity theft
• Auto and home title theft
• Bank fraud
• Credit fraud
• Child SSN theft
• Cyberbullying
• Malware

Aura features

One of the things we liked about Aura is that it offers a well-rounded approach to protecting your identity and monitoring your credit. Not only does it monitor your credit report, but it also offers tools to help you avoid identity theft before it happens, such as a virtual private network (VPN) and antivirus protection. Aura also gives you online storage, a password manager, and an ad blocker.

From our experience, Aura gives you all the tools you need to make sure that your identity and credit are protected.

Aura credit monitoring

Credit monitoring is one of the most important aspects of identity theft protection. Without timely and accurate monitoring, someone could use your Social Security number and credit profile to steal your identity for months before you find out.

Aura monitors all three credit bureaus, including TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax, so you get the most accurate and fastest alerts if hackers open any new credit card or bank accounts in your name or use your credit to open a new loan.

Credit reports and credit scores

Along with credit monitoring, you can also access your credit reports and your VantageScore. Aura provides a monthly VantageScore report and you’ll get updated credit reports from each of the major credit bureaus every year.

Alerts

When you log in to your Aura account, the first thing you’ll see is a dashboard of all the available alerts related to the account monitoring you've set up. 

These alerts notify you of any potential issues that have to do with your credit and financial transactions. You'll also receive digital security alerts if any of your passwords are compromised in data breaches, the Aura antivirus detects malware, or your personal info is found on a data broker site.

Credit alerts

This type of alert includes anything found on your credit report, such as new accounts, changes to your credit usage, or new inquiries.

Vault alerts

These notifications show up any time your information is found on the dark web. Aura separates dark web monitoring alerts into four categories in the Vault: personal data, home and property, passwords, and documents.

Data broker alerts

These pertain to any time you ask Aura to help remove your personal information from a data broker site like Whitepages or LexisNexis. When you set up your Aura account, it prompts you to opt-in to data broker removal if you wish.

Transaction alerts

These are based on any financial accounts you link to your Aura dashboard. These financial alerts are based on a spending limit that you can set for all accounts or set individually for each.

For example, if you set a spending limit of $500 and someone withdraws $600 from your bank account, Aura alerts you so you can review the withdrawal and make sure it’s legit.

If you have a Family plan, you’ll gain access to additional alerts to help protect your family, including:

• Sex offender geo alerts: Receive alerts if a known sex offender lives within one mile of your provided address.
• Child SSN monitoring: Receive alerts if any of your children listed on your account had their Social Security number used unknowingly.
• Family fraud alerts: Get alerts for threats that affect all family members on your account so you can better protect everyone.
• Safe Gaming alerts: Protect your children from cyberbullying with alerts for any voice or text threats your child may encounter while playing online games.

Online security

Not only does Aura give you the tools to protect your identity, but it also includes a variety of online security tools to help you improve your online safety. Some standout features include a password manager, VPN, and antivirus software.

These online security tools are limited to a certain number of devices based on your plan, so an individual plan gets 10 devices while a family plan gets 50. Other included online security features include:

• Vault: 1 GB of cloud storage for important documents per adult.
• Safe browsing: A blocker to help you avoid malicious websites and phishing attacks.
• Anti-track and ad blocker: Get rid of annoying ads and website tracking.
• Spam call and message protection: Aura can scan your unknown calls and messages for you before they reach your phone. And we could all do with fewer voicemail alerts letting us know our car’s extended warranty has expired.
• VPN: A VPN adds further security to your Wi-Fi connection and is a must-have for digital security when using public Wi-Fi.
  

Child protection

Aura offers a robust set of tools to help protect your children. These features are only included with the Aura Family plan, which lets you add an unlimited number of kids to your account. Here are the ways Aura helps prevent child identity theft:

• Parental controls: Using Circle, Aura lets you block inappropriate sites and monitor how much time your child spends on apps and games like YouTube and Roblox.
• Safe Gaming with cyberbullying alerts: Get alerted to cyberbullying, scams, and even online predators that may try to target your child while they game online.
• Child SSN monitoring: Aura checks public records to ensure no one uses your child’s Social Security number.
• Credit freeze for kids: Freezing your own credit can be tedious, let alone trying to do the same for your child. Aura simplifies the process so you can request a freeze on your child’s credit through Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.
• Geo-alerts for sex offenders: Get alerts for registered sex offenders who live within a one-mile radius of your location.

Our experience with Aura identity theft protection

Overall, we were very impressed with Aura identity theft protection. From signing up to completing each step of the setup process, it was an easy experience. Aura walks you through each step of the setup process so you know exactly what you still need to do to get the most out of your Aura subscription.

As we mentioned, Aura does much more than just monitor your credit report and your identity. It also monitors your transactions and alerts you of any spending above a certain threshold. Parental controls and child identity protection features also ensure your entire family is protected, even down to the youngest.

As you set up your account, Aura asks what is most important to you in terms of online safety to help you set up your account. This is worth noting because Aura also comes with additional tools like antivirus, VPN, and ad blocker to improve your online privacy and security.

We found Aura was easy to set up and it was simple to navigate. We also thought this email we received after one week of opening our Aura account showed the company’s commitment to making sure everyone gets the most out of the site.

While the price tag may seem like a steep commitment, especially if you’re protecting your entire family, we thought that Aura ID theft protection was worth it thanks to the high level of protection and additional security tools.

Does Aura keep your data safe?

Aura’s privacy policy is very thorough and organized so you can easily read through it. We read through the privacy policy and didn’t see anything that stood out as being out of the norm — until we got to the section that details how our info is used.

While it makes sense that Aura collects information in order to provide its services, it concerned us when we saw how that data could be used. Aura notes it may use your information to promote co-branded offers with its partners, including notifying you about services the company thinks you might be interested in. That’s a red flag for us since it’s basically saying Aura shares your info to let its partners advertise to you.

We did like that Aura doesn’t allow its partners to use our personal information for purposes outside of communicating, evaluating, improving, and administering offers.

You should also note that Aura shares your data with partners that help it provide certain services. For example, Aura uses Circle to provide parental controls with its Family plan, and Circle requires your data to work properly.

Last but not least, Aura also offers multi-factor authentication so you can add extra security to your account.

Aura compatibility

You can use Aura on almost any device, including your iPhone or Android devices so you can access alerts from anywhere. Aura also offers a browser extension for its password manager as well as a desktop app for its VPN and antivirus.

VPN and antivirus

• Microsoft Windows
• Mac
• Android
• iOS (VPN only)

Password manager browser extension

• Google Chrome
• Mozilla Firefox
• Microsoft Edge

Aura customer support

Aura offers a variety of ways to contact support. It also offers a thorough help section if you want to find answers to your questions without talking to someone.

If you do prefer to chat with someone, Aura has a virtual chat assistant. From our testing, this was just a chatbot and you had to go through a few steps before it allowed you to talk to a security specialist.

Aura also has a support email and phone number that you can use to get help.

Aura prices and subscriptions

Aura provides three different plans: Individual, Couple, and Family. The Individual plan covers one adult and the Couple plan covers two adults. Neither of these plans covers any children, but the Family plan covers up to five adults and an unlimited number of children.

The other difference between the three plans is how many devices are included in the online and device security options included with Aura, such as a password manager and VPN. Each plan covers 10 devices per adult, so the family plan includes protection for 50 devices, the couple plan includes 20 devices, and the individual includes 10 devices.

Despite these small differences, we're happy to see all of Aura's plans include a comprehensive set of identity theft protection features, including:

• Credit monitoring
• Financial activity, dark web, USPS address change, and social media alerts
• Credit reports and scores (including your VantageScore) from Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion
• Credit lock and freeze for Experian only
• Identity recovery
• SSN monitoring
• Home title monitoring

One way to save money with Aura is to purchase an annual plan. Aura gives you about a 20% discount for paying for a year in full. For example, the Individual plan is currently $15.00/mo if you pay monthly, but it’s reduced to $12.00/mo if you pay for a year’s worth of protection. (Or about $150 per year.)

If you’re unsure Aura is the right identity theft protection service for you, you can opt for the free trial or use the 60-day money-back guarantee Aura offers.

Aura plans comparison

Aura FAQs

Bottom line: Is Aura good?

Overall, we were really impressed with Aura. From setting up our account to the robust list of features, we thought it was a great solution to keep your identity protected, not to mention all of the other ways that it helps you protect yourself online, like the VPN and password manager.

Aura gives you real-time alerts on your credit report so you can know quickly if your Social Security number has been compromised. One thing we didn’t love was that you only get access to your VantageScore. Since so many lenders use the FICO model, we thought it was missing an important piece in the overall credit profile.

If you want to add extra security to your online activity and protect your identity, Aura is a great option. And with all the extra bells and whistles, the price tag isn’t too much to ask, either, since you could cancel your existing password manager, VPN, and antivirus with an Aura membership. But if the price tag is still too high, you might consider Zander Identity Theft Protection as a simpler, more budget-friendly alternative — or check out our picks for the best ID theft protection.

Learn More

On Aura's website

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• Includes a password manager and VPN
• Robust tools for children’s security
• Pricey monthly cost

Author Details

Andrew Adams

About the Author

Andrew Strom Adams is a freelance writer focused on online privacy and digital security. He writes on various topics to help individuals protect themselves on the internet. Andrew has worked in legal marketing, technology, and startups. He has more than 12 years of experience in marketing and communications. He holds an M.B.A. from Westminster College and a B.A. in journalism from Oklahoma Baptist University. When he’s not writing, he’s playing with his two kids or watching reality TV.