The average consumer is not immune to cyberattacks and fraud. Fraudsters need personal information like your name, location, and financial assets to take out loans or steal identities, and they can collect this data through malicious software that resides in your devices or the web pages you visit. The most common way to find this data is to hack an IP address, which exposes your online habits and financial information. This is how hackers can target your accounts with phishing emails and spoof popular websites to lure in unsuspecting victims.

IP address fraud checks may use public information and social engineering to gain access to your devices and online accounts, but they also rely on vulnerabilities in apps and operating systems. Malicious attackers can use your IP address to determine what software and apps you have installed, which websites and social media you regularly visit, and how often you use them. This is how hackers can take out loans in your name or empty your bank account.

Detecting Suspicious Activity: Conducting an IP Address Fraud Check

As part of your overall fraud and chargeback prevention strategy, it is vital to analyze and record IP data to help you identify and isolate the root causes of fraudulent activity. A reliable service, like IPQualityScore, provides a fast and affordable method to score and filter risky users in real time.

A risk scoring system can use the IP address to gather user-independent information, like whether a user is based in Russia or they are on a residential network. This can differentiate between a normal, harmless connection with a VPN and one from a country that is known to facilitate stolen credit card fraud, account takeovers, SPAM, and other types of abuse.

…