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What Can Someone Do With Your IP Address

Have you ever wondered what can someone do with your IP address in New Zealand? While a VPN doesn’t provide much personal information, it still opens a window for hackers to access your credentials.

Despite the growing emphasis on security, not many users seem concerned about IP protection. If any hacker gets your IP address through a site or email, he can also devise ways to access your personal information.

To safeguard your online activities and personal data, you can use a trusted VPN service, such as ExpressVPN. In this post, we will discuss how someone can exploit your IP address and ways you can protect it.


Key Takeaways: What Can Someone Do With Your IP Address in New Zealand

  • The IP address of your device works like your digital identity on the internet. It lets different websites, devices, traffic, and applications recognize and interact with your device.
  • Your IP doesn’t disclose your personal information directly. It shows your location (city and country). Expert hackers can use advanced techniques to capture your personal data, like your contact number, precise location, etc.
  • Hackers can access your IP address through websites, ads, email, torrenting links, or even your own routers.
  • With a reliable VPN, you can safeguard all your activities and avoid hackers from accessing your details.

Learn more about all the way for Protecting Your IP Address


What Is an IP Address?

Every device on the network is assigned a unique identifier called an IP address. It is a combination of digits separated by points to provide information about your estimated geographical location.

The IP address is generated and allocated to all devices by the internet service providers. Computers, mobile phones, and routers need an IP to interact with other devices, exchange information, or simply use the internet. Without an IP, no online services are possible.

IP-Address

An IP address typically consists of 9 digits.

The IP addresses are of two types: public IP and private IP in New Zealand. The public IP is an identifier required to connect to the wider internet connection. For instance, in your home network, your router, TVs, and mobile phones have a public IP.

Whereas the private IP helps connect and communicate with the devices on the private network securely. When you search for any information using public IP, you are easily identified on the wide internet.


How Can I Find Out My IP Address?

You can find your email address by searching “what is my IP address” on any other search engine. You can even get additional personal information, like your city and country, by performing a DNS leak test. Additionally, IPLeak.org can be used to find information about your internet service provider.

If several devices like mobile phones, computers, or laptops are connected to your router through WiFi, all will share the same public IP address. To find the private IP address in New Zealand, look into the settings of each device.

Windows users can find it in their computer settings via network and internet panels. Select WiFi and then the Properties to get the IP inserted against the IPv4 address option. To find the IP address in Android, open the device settings and choose the device. Then, click on status information to view the IP address.

If you have a macOS device, select system preferences, double-click the network option, and tap ethernet. Finally, iOS users can head to settings, press WiFi, and choose the active network to find the IPv4 address.

Interested in finding out someone’s IP address? Check out our simple guide for how to Find Someone’s IP address.


Can Someone Else Find Out My IP Address?

Yes! The IP address of every device is visible on the internet. Therefore, any tech expert or hacker can easily get your IP address.

Moreover, if there’s no intention to harm any user, it is completely legal for another person to see their IP address.

A few of the ways how someone can find your IP address are listed below:

  • The simplest technique of finding anyone’s IP is burrowing their device and searching “what is my IP” or visiting the whatismyipaddress.com website online.
  • If your local network or home internet is not fully protected, anybody can tap into it and find the IP address. Even if you insert the WiFi password yourself for your guests, they can still find it out.
  • When you visit any website, your IP address acts like a digital pass for connection. The website can review all IP addresses to analyze the statistics and visitors.
  • Some parties send bug-attached images in the email that leak your IP address when you open them.
  • When you create accounts and stay active on social media apps like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc., the site administrators have access to your IP addresses. Even if you tap on a link or an ad on the site, your IP address can be retrieved by these apps.

What Can Someone Do With Your IP Address in New Zealand?

Your IP address’s open visibility and availability puts your device and data at risk online. Hackers and intruders can conduct illegal activities using your IP. The disasters range from little inconveniences to large-scale cyberattacks, which can even lead to physical attacks.

Here is the list of things what can someone do with your IP address.

Access Your Sensitive Information and Geographic Location

The IP address doesn’t disclose your precise location. In most cases, only your city and country are visible, but hackers can use other ways to get your exact location details. If any person has your IP address, they can find your geographical location using an IP lookup tool.

IP-address-reveal-location

A DNS leak test confirms that an IP address can reveal your location.

Your IP address provides insufficient details to find your name or contact number. When you connect to the internet, it gets attached to the ISP. Using this source, expert hackers conduct network attacks to capture any personally identifiable information related to you.

Impersonate You for Malicious Purposes

After malicious snoopers learn your IP address and access your geographical location, they can plan and plot attacks better. Your personal details, including your name, birthdate, phone number, mailing address, and SSN number can get captured by these masterminds.

Your personally identifiable data is precious for cybercriminals. They can easily combine all your information and attempt to impersonate you, possibly for illegal activities. They can fake your identity to promote child pornography, download banned content, access prohibited sites, or browse the dark web.

In case your IP gets trapped by the government or enforcement agencies, you will have to go through long torment to prove that you were not involved in those illegal activities.

Track Your Online Activity

Not everyone has a bad intention to access your IP address and perform illegal activities. Some companies are concerned about their employee performance so they track their activities through IP addresses. Although such practices may not be considered illegal technically, it’s still your privacy invasion.

Furthermore, some employers want to monitor their employees’ activities in the workplace. They need to figure out their involvement in irrelevant and unproductive activities in the workplace, such as shopping, gaming, or scrolling social media.

In the majority of cases, you can only experience tracking while being connected to the work network only.

Hack Your Device

Devices need an IP address and a port to connect to the network. Ports are the programs or apps that provide a point for communication. Each IP address can have thousands of ports, where many different apps can share one port.

Any hacker with your IP address can run port scanning tools, like Nmap, to visualize the apps working on your system. By sneaking into these details, they can figure out the vulnerable apps.

Later, hackers can launch attacks by targeting spammed links to your device. After finding a loophole, they can enter your device. Once they succeed in entering your system, they can harm you beyond any limits. This can involve installing malware, robbing your data, damaging your device, and even launching ransomware attacks.

Execute a DoS/DDoS attack

When someone has your IP address, they can carry out a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) or Denial of Service (DoS) attack against you. For this purpose, a network of computers is programmed to flood server requests, overcrowd your system with data or disable your device by directing traffic.

As a consequence, you can no longer access websites, network resources, email, or accounts online. Your device gets disconnected from the network connection and shuts down completely.

In the case of a DoS attack, the intensity is great as more devices are systems are involved in launching the attack. These attacks are directed at big companies to shut down their services and demand big amounts to earn easy money.

Therefore, it is highly recommended to use a VPN for DDoS protection in New Zealand.

Sue you for copyright infringement

Different countries have their own guidelines and laws related to the internet. Some countries, like the US, practice strict policies for copyrighting by monitoring user activities. They constantly track torrenting sites to detect any IP addresses involved in downloading protected TV series, songs, movies, etc.

Once the authorities get your IP address, they can contact your ISP and demand your name and address. Therefore, torrenting without VPNs can land you in serious trouble. Make sure you always have your connection protected with a torrent-friendly VPN service in New Zealand.


How Does Someone Get Your IP Address?

Your IP address is not hard to find. Many companies don’t use extra measures to hide your IP because it is not considered personally identifiable information. Due to the accessibility, anyone can get your IP address from different sources, such as:

  • Your email: You can find your IP address listed in the heading by some email services. You can use Gmail servers if you are worried about it, as they don’t list IPs.
  • Torrenting files: Whenever you try to torrent files, your IP address becomes visible on the site in a list. However, using a VPN for torrenting can resolve this issue.
  • Phishing attacks: When you click on fake links or reply to phishing attacks, your IP address becomes available to the hacking team.
  • Online ads: Both fake and genuine ads on the internet can collect your IP address when you click them. Many companies gain profits by running such adware. Luckily, you can remove adware by using some effective methods.
  • Your computer: When someone burrows your device, they can instantly find the IP. It is the easiest source for accessing your IP address.

Protecting Your IP Address

You can protect your IP address in several ways:

  • Update your firewall: If you don’t use firewalls properly, you can’t get protection. Ensure you keep a strong password for your accounts, router, firewall, and devices. Also, make sure you update the passwords after some time to prevent anybody from violating your security.
  • Change your privacy settings: Malicious snoopers can get your IP address from various messaging platforms and apps, like Skype. To fail their attempt, set your apps to private. Also, stay cautious and never attend calls or respond to messages from strangers or unknown numbers.
  • Use a VPN: A virtual private network assigns a new IP address to users and masks their traffic by rerouting it via multiple servers. The top reliable VPN services make sure you get an IP address that can’t be traced back. To, trace an IP address New Zealand each device connected to the network uses an IP address for sending information.
  • Use a proxy server: Just like a virtual private network, a proxy server can mask your IP address while you are logged in. However, proxy servers don’t provide top-class encryption for hiding your online activities. They can only mask your IP address.
  • Use Tor software: Tor is simply a web browser that allows you to perform activities anonymously online. Tor browser or best VPN for TOR in New Zealand masks your IP address like VPNs and proxy servers but routes it through an open-source Tor users’ network. You can check the difference between these two in our detailed Tor vs VPN comparison.

FAQs: What Can Someone Do With Your IP Address in New Zealand

No, your IP address doesn’t reveal your identity directly in New Zealand. It discloses your approximate geolocation, which is not a precise home address. IP can show your city, country, or zip code. However, hackers can join information chunks by tracking your activities and using your IP.

No, you should never get worried if someone gets your IP address in New Zealand. The person having your IP can limit your access to particular sites or forward you spam. In rare and extreme events, a hacker can try to impersonate you.

You can avoid these cases by simply changing your IP address. To do this, either restart your router or use your device settings.

Yes, a VPN securely hides your IP address online in New Zealand. After you connect to a VPN server, it allocates a new IP address to you. In fact, thousands of users share the same IP address assigned by the VPN server, which makes it almost impossible to detect or trace you back.


Conclusion

Thinking what can someone do with your IP address in New Zealand? Well, it’s not just about an address. These groups can seriously harm you, from bombarding you with spam content to performing illegal activities by faking your identity.

IP protection is essential for safe browsing and securely performing any internet activity. You will be in serious trouble if you don’t care about shielding your IP. Therefore, we suggest using a VPN, antivirus software, strong password protection, proxy servers, or firewalls to avoid any data mishandling or large-scale attacks.

If nothing works, you can try changing your IP address always. Whatever you choose, the ultimate goal is to secure your device and data by protecting your IP address.