Hi,
I’m not even sure if I am in the right place, this looks like another language to me. I’m completely lost, and was wondering if someone could help me find out who has been hacking my computer? When I type in IP address, I get several different locations, or maybe it is just one location, and I can’t find which one I should be looking at. I’ve been doing this for a week and I am still no further ahead, I’m getting more confused if anything. If someone out there could lead me in the right direction it would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Nicole
Hi @Nicole,
IPinfo is an internet data provider that gathers information about the internet to make available to our customers and website visitors. The internet is a complicate network of many different systems, behaving in many different ways for many different purposes, which is where we come in.
An IP address can be thought of like a phone number: a service provider (like T-Mobile) has a phone number on their network and then they give that phone number to one of their customers. The customer can then use that phone number to make and receive calls.
A phone number might be assigned to a T-Mobile customer “Alice” who lives at “123 Example Street, San Francisco, California” but Alice could take a vacation to New York, or Alice could have bought the phone for a friend, or the phone could have been stolen and be used by someone else. There are even more complicated situations, like a Google Voice phone number (which is accessible from any computer) or business phone numbers (that are used to route phone calls to multiple employees).
Like a phone number, an IP address doesn’t have a single “location”. We ingest a lot of data to provide accurate information about where an IP address is registered (e.g: we can tell with confidence that the IP address 8.8.8.8 belongs to Google) and even more data to try and identify the location of an IP address but, like with a phone number, it is impossible to provide a definitive location because an IP address (like a phone number) has no physical presence, it is a pointer to a network.
We have a talented team of data engineers, analysts and researchers who produce the best IP geolocation data in the world but it is ultimately not possible to 100% accurately identify the location of an IP address. For that reason, the data on our website can change often: today we might have evidence that the IP address is being used from California, and tomorrow we may have evidence that the IP is being used in New York.
Most malicious actors make use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to hide the true origin of their traffic. We track hundreds of VPN providers which allows us to say, for example, that the IP address 149.102.224.231 can be used by NordVPN customers to mask their identity. For that reason, even if you have the IP address of someone engaging in malicious behavior, it is very unlikely to provide any meaningful information to you in order to track down the person behind the traffic.
Law enforcement have the rights and tools necessary to compel providers to disclose information about subscribers which can allow for malicious actors to be identified but without law enforcement’s involvement it is highly unlikely to ever identify a person from just an IP address.
The best thing you can do is secure your devices and systems following security best practices. For example, a common source of compromise is password re-use. If you use the same password for multiple websites / apps / services, then you are at high risk of compromise. Services like 1Password can help manage your passwords securely, Have I Been Pwned can help identify if your passwords have been leaked and Apple, Microsoft, Google and others provide their own advice for customers on how to keep their accounts secure.
We’re sorry that IPinfo can’t be more help.
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Hi Sam,
Thank you, and you were a great help. I do have one more question, if the person hacking me is in my province, Newfoundland, and he hacks me at 1:00 pm, and then a few hours later I get another hack at 4:00 pm, same day, but this hack is from Vancouver, is it possible it is the same person hacking me, 4000 miles away, 3 hours later? Can he do that? or do I have another hacker?
Thank you,
Nicole
Hi Sam,
I just re read and feel like I need to clarify, this guy didn’t leave the province.
Nicole
If you’re comfortable sharing the IP addresses in question, we can provide you with some insight into how you can interpret the information available on our website.
Regarding whether the scenario you have presented is possible: yes, it is possible for one person to use many different network connections associated with many different locations while staying in one physical location. For example, if someone is a customer of NordVPN they could appear in 111 different countries.
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