Key Takeaways
- Revealing your IP can lead to location exposure but not precise pinpointing.
- Hackers use IP spoofing to conduct undetected attacks by masking their own identity.
- IP address resale on the dark web allows for targeted attacks with massive cyber fraud.
Your IP address is valuable information that, when in the wrong hands, can cause some serious damage. If possessed by hackers, they will use all their creativity, skills, and malintent to make your IP address work for them. Here’s what a hacker could do to you should they learn your IP address and desire to harm you.
1 Determine Your Physical Location
If a hacker has your IP address, the easiest information for them to find out is the city or region you’re located in. While this may be creepy, they won’t be able to pinpoint your exact address.
Once they have your IP address, they can use a website such as WhatIsMyIPAddress to gain a better understanding of where you’re located. A hacker may then be able to use this information to learn more about you such as what your ISP is. Then can then leverage this information to create a more detailed social engineering attack.
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3 IP Spoofing
As far as devices on your network and throughout the internet are concerned, you are your IP address. So when an attacker changes an IP packet to use your address instead of their own, they’re essentially masquerading around the internet as you.
Hackers most often spoof IP addresses to avoid getting their own IP address blacklisted when doing something malicious, most commonly, a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. A DDoS attack happens when thousands of requests are sent to a single device to overwhelm it and knock it offline. In order to do this, an attacker needs a botnet, in other words, an army of computers under their control. To mask a hacker’s IP address, they will pretend to be you so the attack can not be traced back to them.
4 Sell Your IP Address
One IP address probably isn’t very valuable, but what about thousands of IP addresses?
If you were to go on the dark web right now you’d be able to purchase bundles of thousands of IP addresses. Cybergangs then target these IP addresses by running elaborate social engineering campaigns designed to steal personal data which they can then sell on, you guessed it, the dark web.
Also, a single IP address paired with other identifiable information is also more valuable.
5 Hack Your Device
Simply knowing your IP address isn’t enough for a hacker to do you harm. It’s merely one piece of the puzzle that a hacker must put together in order to harm you.
If a hacker uses a network scanner such as Nmap, they can not only find your IP address but can also learn a wealth of information about your computer. They can learn what operating system you’re using, what you’re computer is doing and what ports are open. If a hacker sees that you have a vulnerable port, service, or operating system running, they can then design an attack to take advantage of any vulnerabilities they find.
6 DDoS Attack
While unlikely, it’s feasible for an attacker who has a botnet under their control to inundate your IP address with requests, thus knocking it offline. This is what’s known as a Distributed Denial of Service attack (DDoS).
You probably don’t have to worry about this type of attack as it’s mostly used to target companies or government websites. That being said, tech-savvy gamers have been known to use DDoS attacks against opponents they’ve feuded with online. For example, the developer behind the enormous Mirai botnet started life knocking competing Minecraft servers offline.
While these attacks sound scary, chances are a hacker doesn’t care much about your IP address. There are plenty of bigger fish surfing the web that they’d rather target.
However, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be safe online. If you want to hide your public IP address, we recommend using a proxy server or one of these VPNs. Doing so will mask your IP address, making it much harder for everyday hackers to find your IP address.
There is also the consideration that knowing an IP address and being able to compromise the network of that IP address are two different things. While it’s best to protect your data, as said, it’s unlilkely someone will go to the effort of selling a single IP address (unless you’ve made some serious enemies!). Similarly, while someone could compromise your router and Wi-Fi, that requires more effort and time than just knowing an IP address.
