The dangers of sharing your IP address
You may not be new to stories of social media accounts and email accounts being hacked, or incidents of victims whose credit card details were used in fraudulent activities. The list goes on when it comes to online crime and how rampant it has come to be. It all comes down to people who are always looking to take full advantage of weak network systems. Any slight mistake could make you a victim of cyberattacks, and such mistakes include sharing your IP address. This brings up the question, why should your ip address remain private?
Before you understand why your IP address should remain private, it would be important to know how it can be exposed. One of the ways your IP address can be made public is through using an email service that reveals your IP address to your email recipients. Also, a person using your home Wi-Fi can see your IP address by Googling it. You should, therefore, strive to safeguard your IP address in all manners as it can be intercepted from any angle.
Avoid Manipulative ISPs
Not all internet service providers can be trusted. Your ISP could be one among many that track online user behavior and sell logs data to third parties like government entities. This may never be the case if you ensure that your IP address remains anonymous. This you do by utilizing a VPN which is good at masking your identity. Some VPNs are not as good or useful in masking users IP addresses. You should therefore check ip address status to ensure that your vpn is not leaking it, otherwise your ISP may still be able to track your online activities.
Identity Theft Prevention
You definitely would not entertain the idea of someone else running or committing fraudulent online activities in your name. This could be the case if you go ahead to share your IP address. Hackers have a way of stealing identities online to commit online crimes such as borrowing loans or even filing false tax returns. Within no time, authorities would be on your neck and you may end up having a hard time proving to them that it wasn’t really you committing the crimes.
Financial Information Protection
Should attackers get hold of your crucial financial information, they can proceed to make withdrawals, purchases, deposits or even money transfers at your credit cards expense. This can happen if your IP address is in the open as the attackers can keep tabs on your online financial transactions. How to prevent this from happening? Use a reliable vpn, strong passwords, and only transact on secure sites.
Guaranteed Access To Geo-blocked Content
When your IP address is not public or exposed, you cannot be blacklisted from viewing or accessing content from countries with geo-restricted content. Talk of streaming platforms like Netflix and Hulu that don’t allow some countries to stream US content. To avoid being blocked from accessing certain content or services online in some countries or regions, ensure that your IP address remains private.
Hides Your Location
Online criminals are a dedicated lot. They will go to the extent of tracing your exact location if need be. That said, hiding your IP address is important because such criminals will never have a clue of your location. If they can locate your location, they only need to know when you will be away, travelling for example, and proceed to rob you. To avoid such possible scenarios, get a vpn that hides your location.
Maintain Positive Business Image
Customer’s trust is tested whenever a brand they trust in is affected by cyberattacks. It also takes strong businesses to recover financially from damage caused by online attacks. All these can be prevented by running a business on a private network that doesn’t expose its IP address.
Prevent Personalized Ads Invasion
An exposed IP address means that advertisers can easily learn your online involvement patterns, figure out your interests and start sending you personalized ads. All it takes to start receiving such ads is by for instance doing reviews on various items or products and services online. If you don’t want this to be the case, use a trusted ISP or virtual private network.
