Many online users hide their true Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to protect their privacy or circumvent geographic restrictions. While most of these actions are legitimate, some bad actors use them to commit fraud or launch cyberattacks.
To mitigate the impact of these risks, businesses can leverage the IPinfo privacy detection API to identify connections coming from VPNs, proxies and Tor. By combining this information with other risk data points, companies can make nuanced decisions about how to handle this traffic.
Check if an IP is Using an Anonymizer or Masking Tool
Test if IP belongs to anonymizer service by masking a user’s IP address with their own, and directing the traffic to the target server. A simple proxy can simply mask the source IP, while a more advanced anonymizer like Tor, The Onion Router can hide your identity by routing the request through multiple servers in an encrypted fashion, so only the last node knows your real address.
Some people also use VPNs or other privacy tools to bypass geoblocking to access content that is otherwise not available in their region due to licensing restrictions. This kind of behavior is usually not indicative of criminal activity, but it is a good indication that an IP address may belong to an anonymizer or proxy service. This can then raise a flag for further investigation and trigger additional security measures or a higher fraud score.