What Can Someone Do With Your IP Address?

Last updated on December 16th, 2021 in VPN

what-can-someone see using your ip
You know that your IP address is important, right? We talk about it enough in our security guides. But why exactly are they so vital to protect?
A person’s electronic identity can be tougher than passwords and pins – it takes more effort for hackers or government agents with access requests from law enforcement agencies outside the United States because there may not always be just “one great way” into someone’s personal computers around town! That being said though, if you’re reading this article then chances are you will be more protected today than yesterday and will know exactly what can someone do with your IP address.


What Is an IP Address?

An IP (Internet Protocol) address acts as an identifier for the device you use to access the web. That helps websites know exactly where to send the data you ask for through connection requests.

Besides just identifying your device, your IP address also reveals your geo-location since it contains info like:

  1. What country you are from.
  2. What city you are from.
  3. Who your ISP is.
  4. What your ZIP code is.

How can someone find my IP address?

Your Internet provider gives you a unique string of numbers that’s like the shipping address for online traffic. If they move their servers, your IP changes too – just as it would if someone moved in next door and started using yours!
The vast majority (more than 95%) of all Web sites use dynamic addresses; this means each time you visit one site or send an e-mail message from another person’s computer – there will be no permanent record-tying those visits/ transmissions back to YOU because IP changes with a certain frequency. Your IP address is like a digital receipt for you. It may seem boring, but it’s important because there are plenty of ways that someone could get their hands on this information and use its contents maliciously!

Below we will explain a few ways this can be done to you so you’ll learn what can someone do with your IP address:

  1. Landing your device

    If somebody borrows or uses your computer, they can find out what IP address is in seconds. This means that the person could potentially identify where you live and work just by accessing a website alone like this My IP.ms. There are countless free websites that let strangers access people’s personal information like their name, email password, etc., so make sure security software protects against external attacks on these devices such as viruses/trojans.-Avoiding problems boils down to understanding how an attack works.

  2. via Email

    Some email services keep track of where you are and what device in order to target advertising, but this data is not always reliable. If someone sends an email message with their header information intact then the recipient can see all sorts of helpful stuff like IP addresses!

  3. by Clicking on Link


    The internet is a huge network of pages and servers, all linked together. Whenever you click on one page to get content from another site – like when we check our facebook newsfeed or read emails through google chrome- that server will see your IP address so they can deliver what was requested!

  4. from a Web Server


    Every time you check a website, your IP address is seen and stored on a server. Anyone who owns that server can go and look up your IP.

  5. Clicking on an ad


    When you click on an ad, your personal information is given to the service provider. Sometimes these ads can be created by malicious actors and put security at risk for users who are using them

  6. via unknown Hotspots


    Hackers are always trying to get your personal information so they can make you their Next victims. They could set up a hotspot with a fake signal of yours and view everything that goes through it or even worse – infect devices!

  7. using external Tools

    Using external tools like Grabify someone can create a link to a legit website, and send it to you. Clicking on the link takes you to a real website, but will also allow the person who sent it to track info about you, including your IP address.

Is tracing an IP address illegal?

Seeing that not all of us are tech-savvy you won’t know most of the time what can you do with an IP address. Whether it’s legal or not, many people want to know what your IP address is. This can be used for criminal activities if they’re being shady with the information – but as long you aren’t doing anything wrong and don’t mind them getting into some personal details about yourself like bank accounts etc., then there shouldn’t really BE a law against snooping around on others using their own web browser!

What can people do with your IP address

The consequences of cybercrime can be devastating, especially if you have an IP address that is well known to hackers. This makes it important for everyone who uses the internet and owns devices like smartphones or tablets someplace where their information could potentially leak – such as at home with WiFi access—to take precautions against identity theft by making sure all personal data stays secure when browsing online! There are several forms of threat you may face or what can you do with an IP address:

  1. Restrict Your Access to Certain Services


    The content providers can use your IP address to block certain websites if you’re located in a specific region. They do this by sending out geo-blocks, which prevent people from accessing the web page or site’s content when it is blocked because they are blacklisted according to their geographical location.
    As we already mentioned, an internet protocol (IP) Address leaks one’s geolocation information and any website will know where exactly on Earth someone requesting connection requests lives – so companies like Netflix & Hulu keep populating US server load times with foreign movies rather than waiting hours for data transfer rates abroad; after all these Goolag servers still have finite limits!

  2. Spamming with Ads


    It’s true what they say – you can’t avoid the vacuum cleaner ads. The internet is a jungle, and even your favorite articles will start popping up with their own commercials for products that may be of interest to YOU! That creepy feeling when an advertisement takes over every social media feed? Yeah, it’s because advertisers are tracking us everywhere we go online through our IP address or other types of ways like using pixels on websites… but don’t worry; even though you’re tracked you can avoid seeing most of them, at least on PC, using ad-blocking extensions.


  3. If you’re still wondering what can someone do with your IP address – this one can threaten both your security and pockets. If you’re caught using torrents in countries with tough laws against it, then stuff like that can happen. For instance, the US has very harsh penalties for those who download copyright material without permission or licenses – and single out your IP address when they do so may result in being identified by police as well as having personal information given over to them under DMCA notices/lawsuits if there are serious enough charges filed against someone’s Computer Use Act violation (which would include even things such at “torrenting”).

  4. A hacker can hit you with a DDoS attack


    All they need are some simple software programs and an IP address from someone with access such as employees at a company or neighbors hacking into their home network! They could cause DDoS attacks on devices which would make them crash completely shutting down everything in sight – including businesses running online stores due to vital mail deliveries being impacted by these outages causing delays beyond belief if not totally halted all together while costing millions upon trillions of dollars per day just because one person wanted attention.

  5. Someone can impersonate you to get hold of your IP address


    Your ISP could reveal your IP address to someone else. Criminals who know the name of an individual on social media can contact their Internet service provider (ISP) and try to impersonate them or use a vishing attack in order to steal personal details like credit card numbers from customers’ accounts without being noticed by banks that process transactions online using these given usernames/logins for such sites as Amazon, eBay, etc., though most financial institutions do not store customer information within this way any longer due mostly because it’s been found out there are ways hackers have figured out how to acquire passwords through oftentimes low-level attacks so therefore now instead they’ll just get whatever data you submit.

How do I stop someone from using my IP address?

Now that you know what someone can do with your IP address, you should always protect any personally identifiable information even if you think the risks do not apply to you. With enough determination, anyone can stitch together an entire identity just by going online and your IP could be the starting block for their attack on society!
One of the ways would involve restricting how much personal data one posts online – limiting access only to those who have authorization from all parties involved in order to prevent leaks internally or externally. Since you know from the above content how to find someone’s IP address it’s time to learn how to protect ourselves from that. Below we’ve listed the most important tools you have at your disposal:

  1. Use a VPN


    You should consider starting with the best solution out there – using a VPN. This is an online service that hides your IP address and allows for bypassing school filters since restrictions won’t apply to this new IP Address – perfect!

    A VPN also encrypts all traffic which means system administrators are not able to see what websites/applications were being accessed by individual users on their network while logged in. They will only assume everyone was browsing random HTTPS-encrypted pages because that’s how web browsers usually behave when accessing secure content. A quality VPN will provide you with the best VPN encryption and VPN protocols so you’ll be sure that you’re protected from prying eyes while browsing on Facebook.

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    Our service comes with shared IP addresses so that your activity can never be tied to one particular user, further protecting your privacy.

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  2. Update your firewall and router


    The default router password is often very simple, consisting only of lower or upper case letters. Be sure to change this! You should also use a mix including special characters so that you cannot be hacked remotely by someone who knows what they’re doing on your network connection timeline (or just want some good old-fashioned revenge).

  3. Switch to Mobile Data


    If you’re at home without any WiFi networks available, turn on your mobile data. When that happens and the phone uses its cellular connection instead of WiFi to send or receive packets (data), it will appear as if a new IP address has been assigned by carriers for each different network type – this is because they assign static addresses per subscriber rather than using globally routable ones like most devices do.

Bottom Line


When it comes to your Internet privacy, there are many ways people could find out what you’re doing online. They might be able to figure out where exactly you live, what kind of computer are you using, and even know about any websites that have been visited by you!

This is why you should take your privacy seriously and use a VPN or a proxy server to hide your IP address whenever you’re on the web.

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