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CNX Software – Embedded Systems News

CNX Software – Embedded Systems News

Reviews, tutorials and the latest news about embedded systems, IoT, open-source hardware, SBC's, microcontrollers, processors, and more

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How to Find IP Address Ranges Owned by a Company

If you have a firewall, you may want to whitelist and/or blacklist some IPs depending in the origin. Usually it’s easy to find the owner of an IP address, but how can you find the IP address(es) registered by one specific company ?

Let’s say you want to whitelist Technorati bot.

A simple way is to go to http://bgp.he.net/ and enter the company name (e.g. technorati). It will return the IP list as follows:

I understand the AS entries correspond to the Internet provider, and the IP address ranges can be added to your firewall (I use CloudFlare service)  whitelist.

Jean Luc Aufranc

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.

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ROCK Pi 4C Plus

Sweet! I have been sifting through Apache logs and banning hosting/VPS/colo companies from my web site by individual ranges… this will hopefully help dump entire companies in a short time… thanks!

GOPI

i cant find company in usa pls tell me it is located in usa massachest or it is scam

Limelight Networks

@Snork You do understand that people route regular traffic through VPS & colocation centers, right? VPNs are a thing that exists.

Ram Awadh Sharma

please lets how to find ip address of the company and in one ip code all companies should be displayed on the net

William R Marchand

@Sean Lang VPN usually go through company network. Not a cheap VPS or colo.

Khadas VIM4 SBC

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What is My IP Location? | Geolocation

Looking to query more than 1 IP? Try our Bulk IP Lookup

IP Address Details

ip address allocation by company

IP Location: Mountain View, California (US)   [Details]

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Host Name: crawl-66-249-64-20.googlebot.com

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ISP: Google LLC

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Proxy: 66.249.64.20

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Platform: Unknown Platform

ip address allocation by company

Browser: Googlebot   [User Agent]

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Person Search

Search public records, and find anyone online by name, email or phone number.

Why do you need geolocation?

There are several ways to find the geolocation of a user: HTML5 API, Cell Signal, and IP Address to name a few. The pairing of an IP address to a geographical location is the method we used to provide geolocation data. There are times when you need to identify where your web visitors are coming from. You might have an ecommerce website, and would like to know where your potential customers are, pre-populate country codes on forms, display different languages and reduce credit card fraud based on geographic location. Or, you might want to fight against illegal spammers and hackers and would like to locate the sources of a problem.

Although it would be nice to be able to find the precise location of a visitor, it is almost impossible to find the exact location of a host given its IP address . However, there are tools available to help identify the approximate location of the host. ARIN Whois database provides a mechanism for finding contact and registration information for IP resources registered with ARIN.

You may also use 3rd party websites such as Geobytes or Dnsstuff to look up the IP address. The whois lookup will reveal the name of the ISP who owns that IP address, and the country where it originated from. If you're lucky, you might also find the city of origin. You may also use products developed by 3rd-party companies like Ip2location and MaxMind.

You may also use reverse DNS to find out the hostname of the IP address, which might give you some clues. Many ISPs, Corporations, and Academic institutions use location as a qualified hostname, although this is not always true. A couple of things to note here: (1) Reverse DNS translation do not always work. It depends on the correct configuration of the ISP's DNS server. (2) The US domain names such as .com, .net and .org does not always imply that the host is located in the United States.

You may use ' traceroute ' command to find clues to the location of the IP address. The names of the routers through which packets flow from your host to the destination host might hint at the geographical path of the final location.

IP-based Geolocation FAQ

1. what is ip-based geolocation.

IP-based Geolocation is the mapping of an IP address or MAC address to the real-world geographic location of an Internet-connected computing or a mobile device. Geolocation involves mapping IP addresses to the country, region (city), latitude/longitude, ISP, and domain name among other useful things.

2. Where can I get an IP-based Geolocation database?

There are several commercially available geolocation databases, and their pricing and accuracy may vary. Ip2location, MaxMind, Tamo Soft, DB-IP, Ipinfo, and IPligence offer fee-based databases that can be easily integrated into a web application. Most geolocation database vendors offer APIs and example codes (in ASP, PHP, .NET, and Java programming languages) that can be used to retrieve geolocation data from the database. We use several commercial databases to offer free geolocation data on our website.

There are also freely available geolocation databases. Vendors offering commercial geolocation databases also offer a Lite or Community edition that provides IP-to-Country mappings. Ip2Country.net and Webhosting.info (Directi) offer free IP-to-Country databases that can be also integrated into your web application. There are companies also offering free web services that can be used to show the geolocation of an IP address on your website.

3. How accurate is IP-based Geolocation?

The accuracy of the geolocation database varies depending on which database you use. For IP-to-country databases, some vendors claim to offer 98% to 99% accuracy although typical Ip2Country database accuracy is more like 95%. For IP-to-Region (or City), accuracy range anywhere from 50% to 75% if neighboring cities are treated as correct. Considering that there is no official source of IP-to-Region information, 50+% accuracy is pretty good.

4. How does IP-based geolocation work?

ARIN Whois database provides a mechanism for finding contact and registration information for IP resources registered with ARIN. The IP whois information is available for free, and determining the country from this database is relatively easy. When an organization requires a block of IP addresses, a request is submitted, and allocated IP addresses are assigned to a requested ISP.

Common Network Questions

• Do you want to find an IP address of your network printer? Please read How to find an IP of a printer to find ways to obtain an IP number of your network printer.

• Do you want to find IP Addresses of private network? Please read How to find IP addresses of computing devices on the private network?

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IP Address Articles

Hide My IP Address

March 1, 2016

How to hide my IP address?

There are several ways to hide your IP address, and your geolocation. Hiding your IP address is concealing your "true" IP address with a different one. You may use a VPN, Proxy or Anonymous Browser to hide your IP address.

Change IP Address

April 14, 2016

How to change your IP address?

Would you like to change the IP address of your computer, smartphone or tablet? You're getting your IP address from your Internet Service Provider, and you have the right to obtain a new IP address whenever you desire. Let us show you how you can change an IP address of your device.

Difference between public and private IP addresses

February 15, 2012

What is the difference between public and private IP address?

A public IP address is an IP address that can be accessed over the Internet, and a private IP address is an IP address that is local to your private network. A public IP is a globally unique IP, while a private IP address can be reused in different networks.

Difference between static and dynamic IP addresses

October 7, 2012

What is the difference between a static and dynamic IP address?

An IP address is an address assigned to a device on the Internet. A static IP address is a fixed IP address that never changes, and a dynamic IP address is an IP that is assigned by the DHCP server which may change over time.

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How-To Geek

How do ip addresses work.

Every device connected to a network---computer, tablet, camera, whatever---needs a unique identifier so that other devices know how to reach it.

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What is an ip address, what's the difference between ipv4 and ipv6, how does a device get its ip address.

Every device connected to a network---computer, tablet, camera, whatever---needs a unique identifier so that other devices know how to reach it. In the world of TCP/IP networking, that identifier is the Internet Protocol (IP) address.

If you've worked with computers for any amount of time, you've likely been exposed to IP addresses---those numerical sequences that look something like 192.168.0.15. Most of the time, we don't have to deal with them directly, since our devices and networks take care of that stuff behind the scenes. When we do have to deal with them, we often just follow instructions about what numbers to put where. But, if you've ever wanted to dive a little deeper into what those numbers mean, this article is for you.

Related: 8 Common Network Utilities Explained

Why should you care? Well, understanding how IP addresses work is vital if you ever want to troubleshoot why your network isn't working right , or why a particular device isn't connecting the way you'd expect it to. And, if you ever need to set up something a little more advanced---like hosting a game server or media server to which friends from the internet can connect---you'll need to know something about IP addressing. Plus, it's kind of fascinating.

Note: We're going to be covering the basics of IP addressing in this article, the kind of stuff that people who use IP addresses, but never really thought much about them, might want to know. We're not going to be covering some of the more advanced, or professional, level stuff, like IP classes, classless routing, and custom subnetting...but we will point to some sources for further reading as we go along.

An IP address uniquely identifies a device on a network. You've seen these addresses before; they look something like 192.168.1.34.

An IP address is always a set of four numbers like that. Each number can range from 0 to 255. So, the full IP addressing range goes from 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255.

The reason each number can only reach up to 255 is that each of the numbers is really an eight digit binary number (sometimes called an octet). In an octet, the number zero would be 00000000, while the number 255 would be 11111111, the maximum number the octet can reach. That IP address we mentioned before (192.168.1.34) in binary would look like this: 11000000.10101000.00000001.00100010.

ip address allocation by company

Computers work with the binary format, but we humans find it much easier to work with the decimal format. Still, knowing that the addresses are actually binary numbers will help us understand why some things surrounding IP addresses work the way they do.

Don't worry, though! We're not going to be throwing a lot of binary or math at you in this article, so just bear with us a bit longer.

The Two Parts of An IP Address

ip address allocation by company

A device's IP address actually consists of two separate parts:

  • Network ID: The network ID is a part of the IP address starting from the left that identifies the specific network on which the device is located. On a typical home network, where a device has the IP address 192.168.1.34, the 192.168.1 part of the address will be the network ID. It's custom to fill in the missing final part with a zero, so we might say that the network ID of the device is 192.168.1.0.
  • Host ID: The host ID is the part of the IP address not taken up by the network ID. It identifies a specific device (in the TCP/IP world, we call devices "hosts") on that network. Continuing our example of the IP address 192.168.1.34, the host ID would be 34---the host's unique ID on the 192.168.1.0 network.

On your home network, then, you might see several devices with IP address like 192.168.1.1, 192.168.1.2, 192.168.1 30, and 192.168.1.34. All of these are unique devices (with host IDs 1, 2, 30, and 34 in this case) on the same network (with the network ID 192.168.1.0).

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To picture all this a little better, let's turn to an analogy. It's pretty similar to how street addresses work within a city. Take an address like 2013 Paradise Street. The street name is like the network ID, and the house number is like the host ID. Within a city, no two streets will be named the same, just like no two network IDs on the same network will be named the same. On a particular street, every house number is unique, just like all host iDs within a particular network ID are unique.

The Subnet Mask

So, how does your device determine which part of the IP address is the network ID and which part the host ID? For that, they use a second number that you'll always see in association with an IP address. That number is called the subnet mask.

On most simple networks (like the ones in homes or small businesses), you'll see subnet masks like 255.255.255.0, where all four numbers are either 255 or 0. The position of the changes from 255 to 0 indicate the division between the network and host ID. The 255s "mask out" the network ID from the equation.

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Note: The basic subnet masks we're describing here are known as default subnet masks. Things get more complicated than this on bigger networks. People often use custom subnet masks (where the position of the break between zeros and ones shifts within an octet) to create multiple subnets on the same network. That's a little beyond the scope of this article, but if you're interested, Cisco has a pretty good guide on subnetting .

The Default Gateway Address

Related: Understanding Routers, Switches, and Network Hardware

In addition to the IP address itself and the associated subnet mask, you'll also see a default gateway address listed along with IP addressing information. Depending on the platform you're using, this address might be called something different. It's sometimes called the "router," "router address," default route," or just "gateway." These are all the same thing. It's the default IP address to which a device sends network data when that data is intended to go to a different network (one with a different network ID) than the one the device is on.

The simplest example of this is found in a typical home network.

If you have a home network with multiple devices, you likely have a router that's connected to the internet through a modem. That router might be a separate device, or it might be part of a modem/router combo unit supplied by your internet provider. The router sits between the computers and devices on your network and the more public-facing devices on the internet, passing (or routing) traffic back and forth.

2011-11-29_122259

Say you fire up your browser and head to www.howtogeek.com. Your computer sends a request to our site's IP address. Since our servers are on the internet rather than on your home network, that traffic is sent from your  PC to your router (the gateway), and your router forwards the request on to our server. The server sends the right information back to your router, which then routes the information back to the device that requested it, and you see our site pop up in your browser.

Typically, routers are configured by default to have their private IP address (their address on the local network) as the first host ID. So, for example, on a home network that uses 192.168.1.0 for a network ID, the router is usually going to be 192.168.1.1. Of course, like most things, you can configure that to be something different if you want.

Related: How to Find Your Router's IP Address on Any Computer, Smartphone, or Tablet

DNS Servers

There's one final piece of information you'll see assigned alongside a device's IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway address: the addresses of one or two default Domain Name System (DNS) servers. We humans work much better with names than numerical addresses. Typing www.howtogeek.com into your browser's address bar is much easier than remembering and typing our site's IP address.

DNS works kind of like a phone book, looking up human-readable things like website names, and converting those to IP addresses. DNS does this by storing all that information on a system of linked DNS servers across the internet. Your devices need to know the addresses of DNS servers to which to send their queries.

Related: What Is DNS, and Should I Use Another DNS Server?

On a typical small or home network, the DNS server IP addresses are often the same as the default gateway address. Devices send their DNS queries to your router, which then forwards the requests on to whatever DNS servers the router is configured to use. By default, these are usually whatever DNS servers your ISP provides, but you can change those to use different DNS servers if you want. Sometimes, you might have better success using DNS servers provided by third parties , like Google or OpenDNS.

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You also may have noticed while browsing through settings a different type of IP address, called an IPv6 address. The types of IP addresses we've talked about so far are addresses used by IP version 4 (IPv4)---a protocol developed in the late 70s. They use the 32 binary bits we talked about (in four octets) to provide a total of 4.29 billion possible unique addresses. While that sounds like a lot, all the publicly available addresses were long ago assigned to businesses. Many of them are unused, but they are assigned and unavailable for general use.

In the mid-90s, worried about the potential shortage of IP addresses, the internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) designed IPv6. IPv6 uses a 128-bit address instead of the 32-bit address of IPv4, so the total number of unique addresses is measured in the undecillions---a number big enough that it's unlikely to ever run out.

Unlike the dotted decimal notation used in IPv4, IPv6 addresses are expressed as eight number groups, divided by colons. Each group has four hexadecimal digits that represents 16 binary digits (so, it's referred to as a hextet). A typical IPv6 address might look something like this:

2601:7c1:100:ef69:b5ed:ed57:dbc0:2c1e

The thing is, the shortage of IPv4 addresses that caused all the concern ended up being mitigated to a large extent by the increased use of private IP addresses behind routers. More and more people created their own private networks, using those private IP addresses that aren't exposed publicly.

So, even though IPv6 is still a major player and that transition will still happen, it never happened as fully as predicted---at least not yet. If you're interested in learning more, check out this history and timeline of IPv6 .

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Now that you know the basics of how IP addresses work, let's talk about how devices get their IP addresses in the first place. There are really two types of IP assignments: dynamic and static.

Related: How to Find Any Device's IP Address, MAC Address, and Other Network Connection Details

A dynamic IP address is assigned automatically when a device connects to a network. The vast majority of networks today (including your home network) use something called Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) to make this happen. DHCP is built into your router. When a device connects to the network, it sends out a broadcast message requesting an IP address. DHCP intercepts this message, and then assigns an IP address to that device from a pool of available IP addresses.

There are certain private IP address ranges  routers will use for this purpose. Which is used depends on who made your router, or how you have set things up yourself. Those private IP ranges include:

  • 10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255: If you're a Comcast/Xfinity customer, the router provided by your ISP assigns addresses in this range. Some other ISPs also use these addresses on their routers, as does Apple on their AirPort routers.
  • 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255: Most commercial routers are set up to assign IP addresses in this range. For example, most Linksys routers use the 192.168.1.0 network, while D-Link and Netgear both use the 198.168.0.0 range
  • 172.16.0.0 - 172.16.255.255: This range is rarely used by any commercial vendors by default.
  • 169.254.0.0 - 169.254.255.255: This is a special range used by a protocol named Automatic Private IP Addressing. If your computer (or other device) is set up to retrieve its IP address automatically, but cannot find a DHCP server, it assigns itself an address in this range. If you see one of these addresses, it tells you that your device could not reach the DHCP server when it came time to get an IP address, and you may have a networking issue or trouble with your router.

The thing about dynamic addresses is that they can sometimes change. DHCP servers lease IP addresses to devices, and when those leases are up, the devices must renew the lease. Sometimes, devices will get a different IP address from the pool of addresses the server can assign.

Most of the time, this is not a big deal, and everything will "just work". Occasionally, however, you might want to give a device an IP address that does not change. For example, maybe you have a device that you need to access manually, and you find it easier to remember an IP address than a name. Or maybe you have certain apps that can only connect to network devices using their IP address.

In those cases, you can assign a static IP address to those devices. There are a couple of ways to do this. You can  manually configure the device with a static IP address yourself, although this can sometimes be janky. The other, more elegant solution is to configure your router to assign static IP addresses to certain devices during what would normally be dynamic assignment by the DHCP server. That way, the IP address never changes, but you don't interrupt the DHCP process that keeps everything working smoothly.

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All the computers of the world on the Internet network communicate with each other with underground or underwater cables or wirelessly. If I want to download a file from the internet or load a web page or literally do anything related to the internet, my computer must have an address so that other computers can find and locate mine in order to deliver that particular file or webpage that I am requesting. In technical terms, that address is called IP Address or Internet Protocol Address .

Let us understand it with another example, like if someone wants to send you a mail then he/she must have your home address. Similarly, your computer too needs an address so that other computers on the internet can communicate with each other without the confusion of delivering information to someone else’s computer. And that is why each computer in this world has a unique IP Address. Or in other words, an IP address is a unique address that is used to identify computers or nodes on the internet. This address is just a string of numbers written in a certain format. It is generally expressed in a set of numbers for example 192.155.12.1. Here each number in the set is from 0 to 255 range. Or we can say that a full IP address ranges from 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255. And these IP addresses are assigned by IANA(known as Internet Corporation For Internet Assigned Numbers Authority). 

But what is Internet protocol? This is just a set of rules that makes the internet work. You are able to read this article because your computer or phone has a unique address where the page that you requested (to read this article from GeeksforGeeks) has been delivered successfully.

Working of IP addresses

The working of IP addresses is similar to other languages. It can also use some set of rules to send information. Using these protocols we can easily send, and receive data or files to the connected devices. There are several steps behind the scenes. Let us look at them 

  • Your device directly requests your Internet Service Provider which then grants your device access to the web.
  • And an IP Address is assigned to your device from the given range available.
  • Your internet activity goes through your service provider, and they route it back to you, using your IP address.
  • Your IP address can change. For example, turning your router on or off can change your IP Address.
  • When you are out from your home location your home IP address doesn’t accompany you. It changes as you change the network of your device.

Types of IP Address

IP Address is of two types: 

1. IPv4: Internet Protocol version 4. It consists of 4 numbers separated by the dots. Each number can be from 0-255 in decimal numbers. But computers do not understand decimal numbers, they instead change them to binary numbers which are only 0 and 1. Therefore, in binary, this (0-255) range can be written as (00000000 – 11111111). Since each number N can be represented by a group of 8-digit binary digits. So, a whole IPv4 binary address can be represented by 32-bits of binary digits. In IPv4, a unique sequence of bits is assigned to a computer, so a total of (2^32) devices approximately = 4,294,967,296 can be assigned with IPv4. 

IPv4 can be written as:

189.123.123.90

Classes of IPv4 Address: There are around 4.3 billion IPv4 addresses and managing all those addresses without any scheme is next to impossible. Let’s understand it with a simple example. If you have to find a word from a language dictionary, how long will it take? Usually, you will take less than 5 minutes to find that word. You are able to do this because words in the dictionary are organized in alphabetical order. If you have to find out the same word from a dictionary that doesn’t use any sequence or order to organize the words, it will take an eternity to find the word. If a dictionary with one billion words without order can be so disastrous, then you can imagine the pain behind finding an address from 4.3 billion addresses. For easier management and assignment IP addresses are organized in numeric order and divided into the following 5 classes :

The 0.0.0.0 is a Non-routable address is  that indicates an invalid, or inapplicable end-user address.

A loopback address is a distinct reserved IP address range that starts from 127.0.0.0 ends at 127.255.255.255 though 127.255.255.255 is the broadcast address for 127.0.0.0/8. The loopback addresses are built into the IP domain system, enabling devices to transmit and receive the data packets. The loopback address 127.0.0.1 is generally known as localhost.

2. IPv6: But, there is a problem with the IPv4 address. With IPv4, we can connect only the above number of 4 billion devices uniquely, and apparently, there are much more devices in the world to be connected to the internet. So, gradually we are making our way to IPv6 Address which is a 128-bit IP address. In human-friendly form, IPv6 is written as a group of 8 hexadecimal numbers separated with colons(:). But in the computer-friendly form, it can be written as 128 bits of 0s and 1s. Since, a unique sequence of binary digits is given to computers, smartphones, and other devices to be connected to the internet. So, via IPv6 a total of (2^128) devices can be assigned with unique addresses which are actually more than enough for upcoming future generations.

IPv6 can be written as:

2011:0bd9:75c5:0000:0000:6b3e:0170:8394

Classification of IP Address

An IP address is classified into the following types:

1. Public IP Address: This address is available publicly and it is assigned by your network provider to your router, which further divides it to your devices. Public IP Addresses are of two types,

  • Dynamic IP Address: When you connect a smartphone or computer to the internet, your Internet Service Provider provides you an IP Address from the range of available IP Addresses. Now, your device has an IP Address and you can simply connect your device to the Internet and send and receive data to and from your device. The very next time when you try to connect to the internet with the same device, your provider provides you with different IP Addresses to the same device and also from the same available range. Since IP Address keeps on changing every time when you connect to the internet, it is called a Dynamic IP Address.
  • Static IP Address: Static address never changes. They serve as a permanent internet address. These are used by DNS servers. What are DNS servers? Actually, these are computers that help you to open a website on your computer. Static IP Address provides information such as device is located on which continent, which country, which city, and which Internet Service Provider provides internet connection to that particular device. Once, we know who is the ISP, we can trace the location of the device connected to the internet. Static IP Addresses provide less security than Dynamic IP Addresses because they are easier to track.

2. Private IP Address: This is an internal address of your device which are not routed to the internet and no exchange of data can take place between a private address and the internet.

3. Shared IP addresses: Many websites use shared IP addresses where the traffic is not huge and very much controllable, they decide to rent it to other similar websites so to make it cost-friendly. Several companies and email sending servers use the same IP address (within a single mail server) to cut down the cost so that they could save for the time the server is idle.

4. Dedicated IP addresses: A dedicated IP Address is an address used by a single company or an individual which gives them certain benefits using a private Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate which is not in the case of a shared IP address. It allows to access the website or log in via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) by IP address instead of its domain name. It increases the performance of the website when the traffic is high. It also protects from a shared IP address that is black-listed due to spam.

Lookup IP addresses

To know your public IP, you can simply search “What is my IP?” on google. Other websites will show you equivalent information: they will see your public IP address because, by visiting the location, your router has made an invitation/request and thus revealed the information. the location IP location goes further by showing the name of your Internet Service Provider and your current city.

Finding your device’s private IP Address depends on the OS or platform you are using. 

  • On Windows: Click Start and type “cmd” in the search box and run the command prompt. In the black command prompt dialog box type “ipconfig” and press enter. You will be able to see your IP Address there.
  • On Mac: Go to system preferences and select Network, you will be able to see the information regarding your network which includes your IP Address.

IP address security threats

Each IP address is associated with virtual ports in a computer that acts as a doorway that allows web applications or websites to send and receive data or information on your device. If after the connection is terminated the ports remain open somehow, might allow hackers to get into your device. Once, a hacker gets access to your device remotely through various tools and viruses, they would be able to access all your stored files and data and your computer hardware as well, which includes your webcam, mic, speaker, and all your browsing history, your emails and saved passwords. These are some serious threats from which we need to be extra careful. 

Various online activities can reveal your IP address from playing games or accepting bad cookies from a trap website or commenting on a website or forum. Once, they have your IP, there are websites that help them get a decent idea of your location. They can further use social media websites to track your online presence and cross verify everything that they got from these sites and use your information for their benefits or can sell these data collected on the dark web which can further exploit you.

The worst which I have seen in my friend’s pc got infected while he was installing an application that he downloaded from a pirated website. The moment he hit install, a number of command prompt boxes started appearing, tens of commands started running and after a while, it was back to normal. Some malware was installed in the process. After a few days, someone was trying to log in to his social media account and other accounts using his computer as a host pc (his own IP address) but his computer was idle. The hacker was using his pc and his network, i.e., his IP address to do some serious stuff. He formatted his computer then and there, secured all his emails and other accounts, and changed all the passwords and all the security measures that had to be taken. 

Cybercriminals use different techniques to get hands-on with your IP address and know your location, get into your network and hack into your computers. For instance, they will find you through Skype which uses IP addresses to speak. If you are using these apps, it’s important to notice that your IP address might be vulnerable. Attackers can use the various tools, where they will find your IP address. Some of the threats are: Online stalking, downloading illegal content using your IP address, tracking your location, directly attacking your network, and hacking into your device.

Protect and hide IP address

To secure and hide your IP address from unwanted people always remember the following points:

  • Use a proxy server.
  • Use a virtual private network (VPN) when using public Wi-Fi, you are traveling, working remotely, or just want some privacy.
  • Change privacy settings on instant messaging applications.
  • Create unique passwords.
  • Beware of phishing emails and malicious content.
  • Use a good and paid antivirus application and keep it up to date.
  • When you are using public wifi in a cafe or station or anywhere, you must hide your IP address by using VPN. Getting your IP from public wifi is just a cakewalk for these hackers and they are very good at stealing all your information while using your computer’s address. There are different phishing techniques in which they email you, call you, and SMS you about giving vital information about you. They give links to vicious websites which are pre-rigged. The moment you open these websites, they steal all your device’s information revealing all the information about you and your device which are to be kept private. These leaks help the hackers to exploit your device and install or download some spyware and malware on your device. But using a good anti-virus gives you web security as well, which will prevent those websites to launch and warn you about the information being passed to these websites.
  • It is also not recommended to use torrent or pirated websites which are a threat to your online identity and can compromise your device or emails or any other information about you.

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