Can A Hacker Really Do Anything With Your IP Address?

An IP address won’t hand over your passwords, but it can give attackers somewhere to aim

In November 2021, Twitch streamer xQc lost his internet connection shortly after playing "Crab Game." The game's developer then warned streamers to avoid public lobbies after discovering that the game could expose players' IP addresses to distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Although xQc couldn't confirm an attack caused that specific outage, the developer soon switched to newer Steam networking to hide IP addresses.

IP addresses basically help route data to and from websites and games. Now, most home routers let multiple devices share one public IPv4 address, while IPv6 can give each device its own public-facing address. But before you pull out the tinfoil hat, understand that neither type of IP address gives someone access to your passwords or personal data. However, both can give a hacker a target to aim at, and that's...

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