How to Protect Yourself from IP Spoofing

The internet has become an increasingly dangerous place where no one is really immune from a hacker attack or other types of internet crimes. A hacker can attack you for the most innocuous of reasons or even much serious ones like stealing your financial and personal data, which can then be duplicated or used without your consent for nefarious purposes. That is why it is so important for users to navigate the internet with utmost caution and be careful about every little thing they do.

Having said that, did you know that you could be a victim of hackers and not even realize it? Moreover, did you know IP spoofing is one of the most preferred methods of hackers when attacking internet users? If no, read on to know more about IP spoofing, how it can be used against you and what you can do to stop it.

IP Spoofing – What is it?

IP spoofing is a method that spammers, scammers and hackers use to get hold of people’s personal or financial information. If you are wondering what is my IP address and how it can be used against me through spoofing, relax. Rather IP spoofing is a practice that involves the attacker creating an IP (Internet Protocol) where the header contains a bogus source IP address.

So the IP is basically spoofed with some dubious information which conceals the sender’s identity and can even be used by a hacker to initiate an attack with the intention of harming you.

Through IP spoofing, an attacker is able to hide when he commits cybercrimes like scamming or spamming. The spoofing ensures that even if someone discovers the attack, tracing it to the original attacker responsible for the cybercrime would be next to impossible. The worst thing about such an attack is that it can be deployed on specific types of systems as also much larger infrastructures and end up causing damage that can run into millions of dollars.

How Spoofing Works?

The Internet Protocol is used to send and receive data through the internet, or any other network for that matter. This data is transmitted through packets and each of these IP packets has a header containing information within it.

Now the origin of this data is communicated to the receiving IP address by the source IP address. With spoofing however, this source IP address is faked. If you are wondering if ‘my IP address can be used against me’ then worry not as IP spoofing has got nothing to do with your IP address.

How Can I Protect Myself Against Spoofing?

While internet users who are not aware of the finer points of staying safe on the web can find everything quite intimidating and despair that there is nothing they can do to protect themselves, it’s not a lost case by any means. All you need is a little research and lots of practice in learning how to safeguard every step you take in the World Wide Web.

There are several ways using which you can protect yourself from spoofing and other similar attempts at compromising your privacy. But if you do not feel confident about doing this on your own, you can go for professional help.

Here are a few things you can do if you decide to venture on your own.

• Ensure your internet service provider is a reliable one. The ISP should have excellent infrastructure that not only fortifies your internet connection but also works against these types of attacks.
• Configure your router’s packet filtering so that it ensures fake IP packets are not able to route themselves using your network.
• Use either HTTPS or TLS to encrypt your data packets which ensures that even in the event of a hacker intercepting your data, he will be unable to change the packets because of the encryption.
• In case you want even more peace of mind, use any one of the several spoofing detection tools available online. Such tools detect suspicious activities almost immediately and bring them to your attention.
• Another excellent solution is to use a VPN (virtual private network) service.

That wraps up a basic insight into what is IP spoofing and how it can be used to gain unlawful access to sensitive information about you. By adopting generally safe practices while browsing the internet and sharing sensitive information only over secured or encrypted protocols, you can go a long way in ensuring the integrity of your data.