What are alerts, how do they help me?

How do they help me?

• Secures customers' online accounts by sending alerts when account and password have been exposed, especially after a data breach.
• Cybercriminals use Dark Web sites to buy or sell personal information, which is often used to commit identity theft.
• Aura monitors Dark Web sites to ensure that personal information and ID numbers (e.g., phone numbers, address, passport, SSN, insurance ID, etc) have not been exposed online.
• If information is found online, we’ll send an alert with recommendations on how to protect yourself.

What are alerts?

•  Dark Web Monitoring Alerts: Many of our online accounts use our email addresses as our username—think about your online social media, shopping, and payment accounts, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Target, PayPal, and many more. If one of these sites were part of a breach, your email address and passwords are likely on the Dark Web being sold by criminals, making your other accounts more vulnerable to cybercrime. Aura will send alerts if any online accounts tied to your email addresses are found on the Dark Web, so you can quickly change your password and keep your sensitive information safe. You can monitor up to 10 email addresses with Aura. Cybercriminals use Dark Web sites to buy or sell personal information, which is often used to commit identity theft. Much of the personal information sold on the Dark Web comes from data breaches and hacks. 

• Personal info and SSN monitoring Alerts: Aura alerts you when your registered personal information, such as your phone numbers, driver’s license information, passport number, health insurance IDs, Social Security Number, and more are exposed online on the Dark Web. Cybercriminals use Dark Web sites to buy or sell personal information, which is often used to commit identity theft. Pieces of your personal information can be combined into a synthetic identity, which can be used by criminals to commit various types of fraud that can compromise your identity without your knowledge.

• Identity Verification Monitoring Alerts: Institutions may ask you to “verify your identity” in order to access services or initiate transactions, like opening a bank account or conducting a wire transfer. “Verifying your identity” may involve confirming personal information on an online form, like past addresses, the last 4 digits of your SNN, answering security questions, and more. Aura alerts you when your identity is verified in this manner, allowing you to catch fraudulent activity before it does harm. With so much of your information in the hands of third parties, acting fast is the best defense against identity theft. Not all identity theft involves credit fraud, so if you’re only monitoring your credit, you could miss crucial signs of fraudulent activity with your identity.

• Home Title Monitoring: Home title monitoring helps protect your home by keeping watch over your property deed title for any suspicious or unauthorized changes. Aura scans county records nationwide and alerts you when new titles are added with your name on them, or if an existing title was modified to remove your name or a new co-owner added. Criminals are capable of stealing your home without ever setting foot inside of it. All it takes is a change of deed ownership, and suddenly your home’s equity is completely drained. Home Title Monitoring helps prevent this by alerting you as soon as changes are made to your property title.

• Criminal and Court Records Monitoring: Aura monitors public criminal records and alerts you if your identity was used by criminals during traffic violations, misdemeanors, and felony offenses. We also notify you if your name and personal information appear in any state sex offender registries that may compromise your reputation. Your background records are checked every time you start a new job, apply for a loan, buy a home, buy a car, etc. No matter the event, you could lose a lot if unknown criminal charges appear. You can get ahead of this with criminal and court records monitoring.

• Financial Transaction Monitoring: Link your financial accounts (e.g., credit cards, banking, 401k, and investment accounts) so you can monitor all your transactions in one place. Set spending alerts so you can get notified about transactions above your thresholds to detect early signs of fraud. Keep track of all of your financial accounts in one place and simplify your alerts. According to the U.S. FTC, bank and credit card fraud are among the most prominent incidents of identity theft and fraud. When you customize spending thresholds, you add an extra layer of security that detects suspicious spending which happens often in fraud cases.

• Bank Account Monitoring: Stay safe from bank fraud by getting notified when someone tries to modify your bank account’s personal information or add new account holders to access your funds. According to the U.S. FTC, bank fraud continues to be one of the more common identity theft crimes (nearly 100,000 incidents in 2020). Without bank account monitoring, you may not get notified if someone makes changes to your existing bank accounts, making your finances vulnerable to financial fraud.‍
• Credit Monitoring (3-bureaus) Alerts: Aura gives you near real-time alerts of inquiries into your credit file across the 3 major credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, TransUnion). Our credit notifications were proven by an independent study to be up to 4x faster than some of our competitors. A person’s credit history (credit score and report) is what financial institutions use to assess an individual’s risk factor when issuing them credit products such as credit cards, loans, mortgages, and more. Identity thieves and criminals may use or steal another person’s information (name, SSN, birthdate, and more) to gain access to their credit benefits and not repay them, putting the victim’s credit and finances at risk.

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