Know How To Protect Your IP Address And Prevent Cyber Attacks

Posted by Sonia J on April 18th, 2018

I am sure you are aware of IP address if you have a broadband internet connection at your home. It looks something like this 192.168.100.2. Suppose you go online for activities ranging from chatting with friends to shopping at one of the online shops to sending official emails. The requests that you make have to reach an appropriate destination and the information that you are looking forward to should come back straight at your desk. To ensure that you can receive appropriate information, the Internet Protocol address delivers and routes those requests. For doing it, it uses a certain address which is the IP address of your connection. If you are using the service of one of the broadband internet service providers in Kolkata, you will surely have an IP address that will enable you to effectively communicate with different devices over the internet.

The IP address is assigned to your computer by your internet service provider. Whatever activity you do on the internet goes through them and is routed back to you, which is possible because of your unique IP address. This holds true when you are at home. What happens when you are out on a trip? You definitely cannot take the IP address of your home broadband connection along. Why? It is because you will be hooked on to another network for enjoying access to the internet. That means when you are sitting in an airport in another city, you will be assigned an IP address by the airport's internet service provider.

IP addresses can be of different types as well. Private IP addresses are generally the one that you use at home allowing your device to communicate with the router and other devices in your private network. Such kind of IP addresses can be configured manually or are assigned by the router automatically. On the contrary, public IP addresses are assigned by your ISP and are used outside your private network. This address is used for communication with networked devices around the world. Your device can directly communicate with other people's systems. A dynamic IP address is that which is assigned by a DHCP server. However, in the absence of a DHCP enabled device, the IP address has to be assigned manually and is referred to as a static IP address.

But every time that you go online, you are recognizable to the world at large by your IP address. With the internet ruling our lives today, we use it for any reason - be it reading online books and novels to shopping diapers to finding plumbing solution and much more. On the surface, everything looks smooth. But the rising number of cyber crimes and attacks make it challenging for the internet users. They can perform shady activities through your system if they can hack your IP address. Hence, you must do everything possible to secure the IP address of your system. Do you know what can a cybercriminal do with your IP address? Look down.

They can use your IP address to download pirated videos, movies and music including child pornography or content that is against national security.

An attacker can easily trace your location by using the geolocation technology to identify your city, region and the state that you reside in.

Attackers can directly target your network and launch assaults. They can conveniently shut down your internet and prevent you from accessing vital resources and information.

What exactly can you do to secure your IP address?

There are a few ways through which you can secure your IP address and avoid cyber attacks.

It is the router that sends data between networks and it is the firewall that keeps any unauthorized access to your system at bay. It is very important to always change the administrative password on the router. The reason behind this is that the default passwords are more than often used by the attackers for getting an access to your system. Do not forget to set the firewall rules in order to prevent online ping requests.

Using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) helps to protect your online data via encryption and proxy tunneling. A Virtual Private Network hides the IP address of your internet by redirecting traffic with the help of another server. VPN services are available online for a certain monthly subscription fee.

Do not ever accept calls or messages from unknown sources. To do that, you may consider changing the privacy settings on your instant messaging applications. When you tune it to private settings, it becomes a challenge to find your IP address thus preventing people that you do not know from connecting with you.

Ensure to update your antivirus solution for protecting your system from any kind of potential cyber threat. You may also consider installing an additional security.

Whenever you hire the services of one of the internet service providers in Kolkata take the above-mentioned points into consideration to stay safe against cybercriminals and crimes.