What exactly can an IP address reveal about you? Is it possible that an IP address can be hacked or stolen?
So I never had an account with Best Buy but it appears that someone may have hacked into my email account to create a Best Buy account with my information. I am also not sure how my credit card information ended up on the account since the hacker was able to purchase a $1000 Microsoft Laptop. Luckily I was able to get a refund. Apparently one of the Best Buy team members told me that the email and IP address matched mine to make the purchase. First of all I never had an account with Best Buy and luckily I was able to create a new password to take control of my new account. By the way, I think only websites have access to the public IP but not private IP addresses on a specific device. I am wondering if it is possible that this hacker may have used or stolen my IP address to try to link the order to me even though I never placed it? How do you protect your IP address?
Phoenix2021-02-02T19:04:27Z
If someone commits a serious online crime, the feds can use their IP to find out where they live.
IP addresses are public and assigned by your ISP, not Best Buy.
The BB employee that verified that it was your IP address is flapping his gluteus maximus. The BB employee won't know your IP address. You need to talk with your bank and a high up or fraud person in BB about the situation. You will have to prove you are the victim at points.
You have TWO IP's. A Public one and a Private one. Your Public IP Address is assigned to your Modem/Router by your Internet Service Provider. IF your Public IP Address is Traced all they will find is the location of your Internet Service Provider (not your address). Your Private IP Address is assigned to your Computer by your Router. It looks like this: 192.168.xxx.xxx or 10.10.xxx.xxx. This method allows you to have has many devices as you want with their own IP address but your ISP only needs to assign ONE IP address to you.
Your IP address serves as the way that traffic on the Internet (and your local home network) is able to find your computer. The IP address with normally have four section to it, separated by commas. The number in each section can range from 0 to 255. So a IP address would look like 192.168.10.215.
Think of it as been similar to a phone number. The first three digits of a phone number are the area code. If you know the area code, you can tell what part of the country the phone is located in. Such as 828 in an area code in North Carolina, while 810 is an area code in Michigan. the next three numbers will take you to an exchange (giving an area in a city) and the final four take you to your phone.
Like area codes, IP address are assigned to different regions of the world. And ten to different Internet Service Providers within those regions. From your IP address, a person could determine what country you are in, what regions of the country and who provides your Internet service. They can NOT find the address or anything like that of your computer. the closest they can get is that you are someone in southern Florida who uses Spectrum as their Internet provider.
Normally your computer will have two ip addresses. One will be an internal address that only exist on our home network. It is visible to the public. And if they had it, it would be worthless to the. ICANN (the group that controls the assigning of IP addresses) as set aside the ranges of 192.168.xxx.xxx and 10.10.xxx.xxx for local home networks. You will have an address in one of those two ranges. But so will everyone else in your town, state and country who has a local home network. So that address is worthless to them.
You also have a public IP address. But that is NOT actually the address of your computer. It is the IP address of the modem that your ISP provides for you to use for Internet access. Every device in your home has the same public IP address. When you talk to the Internet, everything goes over our local network to your router using your local IP address. The router then uses its public address to send the information out to Internet. But it keeps track of which device on the local network sent out the information. When the router gets a reply, it then uses your local IP to send the information to your device.
If someone has used your IP address to sign up for an account, contact your ISP. They will be able to change your IP address. You can not do it. They have to do it for you. that will prevent them from using your account and your IP together as a pair to open new accounts.
Best Buy probably got hacked. many companies get hacked and don't tell. remember when Experian got hacked and didn't tell until months later? now they think giving people 13 credit points is supposed to fix it. just buy Lifelock/Norton so you won't have to worry. I couldn't get my computer until I called them and gave them the okay to confirm the order. LOL!