What Is An IP Address:

An IP Address is a unique string of numbers that allows computers to talk to each other over the internet, it also identifies your home or business when using the internet.

There are several types of IP Addresses, IPv4 and IPv6, each of these have Public or Private Addresses.

Your public IP address can be a wealth of information to the bad guys of the internet.

What Is Your Public IP Address:

IP addresses can change depending on how your internet service provider (ISP) has configured your account.

Your current IP address is: [xyz-ips snippet=“Show-Public-IP“]

What Does Your IP Address Say About You:

Your IP Address can say a lot or very little and a lot of people don’t even know it exists.

Among other things it can show:
Your approximate location, this can be as accurate as your city but may be as vague as state or country.
Your Internet Service Provider, this is generally pretty accurate but sometimes shows a more general result.
Open Ports, you may not realise it but devices inside your network can open themselves up to the outside world by just connecting them to the network.
Services on Open Ports, It’s not hard to see if something is listening on an open port and gather useful information about it, for example, if there is a website behind, security camera, phone system or more running behind a public IP address.
Vulnerabilities, The link below will show all of the above information and also known vulnerabilities that apply to your network based on the Open Ports and Services it has found.

[xyz-ips snippet=“Shodan-Public-IP“]

Why Is This Information Important:

Your IP Address and Open Ports can provide hackers access to your private systems and personal information, possibly without you ever knowing.

What Is Safe and What Should You Worry About:

The answer to that is very subjective, each person’s results will vary and whether a port should be open or not depends on your individual situation.
For example ports 80 and 443 are used to host websites and port 25 for email servers, both of which may be required by a business, however, if you aren’t hosting a website or email server then you need to question why they are open, as a home users you probably don’t need these either.

Examples Of Hacks:

Earlier this year around 75,000 Google Home devices such as TV’s and Speakers were hacked to display (or speak) a warning message that they could be hacked (because they were). This was just that a warning message to highlight how insecure devices can be if they are not configured correctly.

More often than not the intentions are much more sinister, such as stealing personal information, hacking bank accounts, crashing websites and much more.

Just days ago Citrix “American multinational software company that provides server, application and desktop virtualization, networking, software as a service, and cloud computing technologies” was hacked and over 6 Terabytes of private information was accessed due to a weak password. They were also completely unaware until the FBI got in contact to let them know about it.

How Can We Help:

If you find something that doesn’t seem right using the Shodan link above contact us and we will take a look to help determine if you should be worried and advise you of the best course of action moving forward.