What It Doxxing? How It Happens, and How to Stay Safe?
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<article id="post-4273" class="post-4273 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-cyber-attack tag-doxxing entry" morss_own_score="9.621802002224694" morss_score="17.514109694532387"> <p><span><a href="https://certera.com/blog/">Home</a> » <span>What It Doxxing? How It Happens, and How to Stay Safe?</span></span></p> <h1>What It Doxxing? How It Happens, and How to Stay Safe?</h1> <div><img decoding="async" src="data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%2012%2012'%3E%3C/svg%3E" title="1 Star"><img decoding="async" src="data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%2012%2012'%3E%3C/svg%3E" title="2 Stars"><img decoding="async" src="data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%2012%2012'%3E%3C/svg%3E" title="3 Stars"><img decoding="async" src="data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%2012%2012'%3E%3C/svg%3E" title="4 Stars"><img decoding="async" src="data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%2012%2012'%3E%3C/svg%3E" title="5 Stars"><strong>2</strong> votes, average: <strong>5.00</strong> out of 5)</div> <p><img decoding="async" src="data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%2016%2016'%3E%3C/svg%3E"> </p> <figure> <img decoding="async" src="data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%20960%20620'%3E%3C/svg%3E"></figure> <div class="entry-content" morss_own_score="5.7846153846153845" morss_score="321.12610495816665"> <p>In today’s digital world, our private information is more accessible than ever. The benefits of the internet pose a significant threat to our privacy and security.</p> <p>Doxxing is one such threat, which means publicly revealing private, sensitive, or identifying information about an individual without their consent. This information includes home addresses, emails, phone numbers, workplace details, and other personal details. The intent behind this crime is primarily to harass, intimidate, or harm the targeted individual.</p> <p>The recent stats reveal that over <strong>43 million Americans have experienced doxing, and 90% of doxing incidents include the victim’s address</strong>. Also, <strong>3 million people are stalked over the internet yearly</strong>, yet only about 3 get punished under the Interstate Stalking Statute.</p> <p>So, continue reading this blog to learn everything about doxing, how it happens, and what you can do to protect yourself.</p> <h2>What is Doxing?</h2> <p>Although “doxxing” is based on the phrase “dropping dox”, in turn, where “dox” is shorthand for “documents,” the practice is equally hurtful and harmful. Doxxing is the act of researching and broadcasting private or identifying information about another person. Information may be harvested from public databases, hacking, <a href="https://certera.com/blog/phishing-attacks-explained-how-to-spot-and-prevent-online-scams/">phishing</a>, or spoofing. </p> <p>Typically, the information is released purposely by doxxers to inflict inconvenience, harm, embarrassment, or humiliation. <strong>Different types of information may be targeted to find out:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Real name</li> <li>Contact information</li> <li>Social Security number</li> <li>Address</li> <li>Employer</li> <li>Credit card numbers</li> <li>Bank account information</li> <li>Personal photos</li> <li>Social networking accounts</li> </ul> <p>Doxxing itself may not be deemed illegal if the information broadcast is not part of the public record, e.g., arrest records, marriage certificates, major traffic violations, and real estate transactions. Information, however, public, may still be damaging if released. Public records uncovered may be obtained and disclosed without the commission of a misdemeanor. </p> <p>Doxxing becomes illegal when information that is not part of the public record is disclosed, such as bank account information, credit card numbers, or birth certificates.</p> <p>On Twitch, any kind of doxxing is strictly prohibited and is a violation of the platform’s Community Guidelines. This is true even if the victim’s information is available to the public in some other way. </p> <p>If someone has posted your personally identifiable information (PII) on Twitch without your permission, you can submit a report, and Twitch will investigate the issue and take appropriate action against the doxxer.</p> <p>If an offending Twitch user reveals your PII in an off-platform setting, you should submit a report to both the offending content and the user on that platform. Twitch can only respond to incidents of doxing on its service, unless a clear and credible violent threat is uncovered. </p> <p>The uniqueness of one’s PII makes proactively detecting and preventing doxing a very hard task. However, there are several steps that can be taken by Twitch and its users in order to enforce safety both on and off the platform.</p> <h2>How Does Doxxing Work? </h2> <p>A doxxer will harvest breadcrumbs about people scattered across the internet and piece together those little bits of information to find the real person behind an alias. Breadcrumb data includes the target’s name, physical address, email address, phone number, and more. Breadcrumb data includes the target’s name, physical address, email address, phone number, and more.</p> <p>Doxxers may also buy and sell personal info on the dark web. A doxxer can take tiny pieces of information and piece them together to reveal the real person behind an alias. The real person behind an alias could be revealed by linking tiny pieces of information. </p> <p>Traditional doxxing began with an online argument, before progressing to one person digging up information about an adversary.</p> <p>More recently, doxxing has involved a popular tool utilized in the culture wars, with activists doxxing those with opposing views. Many politicians, celebrities, and journalists have been doxxed, leading them to suffer from online mobs and even death threats. </p> <p>What is doxxing someone is tracking down private information. And although many people think of the internet as anonymous, it’s very much not. There are many ways you can be identified online.</p> <h2>The Major Types of Doxxing</h2> <p>All types of doxxing involve leaking an individual’s private information, but the specific purpose and nature differ from case to case. <strong>Here are the main categories of doxxing:</strong></p> <h3>Harassment Against Celebrities</h3> <p>Many high-profile celebrities and other people representing them often become victims of doxxing for real or apparently spurious reasons or just for straightforwardly bothering someone. They are, in fact, dangerously tempting targets for that reason, as a lot of people are curious about the private life of one or another star. </p> <p>The consequences of doxing, like revealing celebrity home addresses or leaking their compromising or other sensitive personal information, can be catastrophic.</p> <h3>Targeted Doxxing</h3> <p>Targeted doxxing is when a singular individual is picked out as a victim, either for who they are or things they’ve supposedly done. Targeted doxxing can be part of coordinated cyberbullying campaigns, a result of personal vendettas, or revenge conduct for some kind of apparent transgression. Sometimes doxers themselves are doxxed in acts of tit-for-tat revenge.</p> <h3>Faulty Doxxing</h3> <p>Doxxing is used often used by online vigilantes to unmask wrongdoers or by political activists to target their opponents. But this puts the reputations, jobs, and even lives of the victims at risk, and all too often, mistakes are made linking innocent people to situations with which they had nothing to do. </p> <p>Tragedies related to the consequences of “faulty doxxing” are seen through the suicide of Sunil Tripathi after he was wrongly doxxed as the Boston Bomber.</p> <h3>Swatting</h3> <p>Swatting is a particularly extreme form of doxxing in which the swatter uses knowledge of the victim’s location to make a hoax call to emergency services, the aim being to cause armed police to swoop down on their address. </p> <p>Not only is swatting illegal, but it’s also potentially fatal — as was the case for an unarmed 28-year-old shot dead by police responding to false reports of a hostage situation at his home.</p> <h2>How Doxxers Find Personal Information?</h2> <p>Doxxers use a variety of methods to find personal information about their targets. They can find IP addresses, access your social media profiles, use phishing campaigns, buy data from data brokers, and even intercept internet traffic.</p> <p>Below are the most common techniques that doxxers use to uncover your details:</p> <h3>IP/ISP Doxxing (or ISP Doxxing)</h3> <p>When the doxxer finds your IP address, a way to easily track your physical location, they can then engage in a tech support scam using call spoofing apps and <a href="https://certera.com/blog/what-is-social-engineering-techniques-examples-best-practices-preventions/">social engineering</a> to get your ISP to give them personal information like your phone number, email address, date of birth, and social security number.</p> <p>Have you really ever not perused every bit of personal information about yourself on your Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts? That information, also, might go back years, and include answers to trivia questions that can be used to get into other accounts that might be more sensitive, but you have long since forgotten the answers to the security questions.</p> <p>With every site in your social media sites, there is a mountain of personal data out there. Because you also are probably suffering from FOMO – Fear of Missing Out, you probably haven’t made a single piece of information private. And then there are online social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, 4Chan, Discord, YouTube, etc., and their users give you even more information that will be useful to a doxxer.</p> <h3>Data Broker Doxxing</h3> <p>These are organizations that compile all the personal information they can find on everyone – all from publicly available records, as well as customer loyalty cards, online search histories, etc. Then they sell this info to advertisers and, of course, to anyone willing to pay for their dinner. </p> <p>Then, there are the pages and pages of people-search sites selling comprehensive personal info on everyone. That’s a lot of publicly available data that can be used to dox you.</p> <h3>Phishing</h3> <p>This involves using fraudulent communications to entice victims into revealing sensitive personal information. Knowing <a href="https://certera.com/blog/phishing-attacks-explained-how-to-spot-and-prevent-online-scams/">how to spot and avoid Apple ID phishing scams</a> and the broader class of spear-phishing attacks is a good way to keep doxxers at bay. </p> <p>Then, for additional security, also use the best anti-virus software, like the free version of Avast Antivirus, in order to prevent phishing attacks, spyware, and anything else that might put your identity at risk.</p> <p><strong>Also Read:</strong> <a href="https://certera.com/blog/what-is-quishing-qr-phishing-common-attacks-vulnerabilities-and-prevention/">What is Quishing(QR Phishing)?Common Attacks, Vulnerabilities and Prevention</a></p> <h3>Sniffing</h3> <p>Sniffing involves the practice of eavesdropping on the flow of information across the internet while data packets are in transit from the sender to the receiver. All the doxxer would have to do is utilize sniffing tools to capture your internet traffic and then comb it later for personal information. </p> <p>The simplest solution that will save you from a sniffing attack is download a VPN. It gives protection because of the encryption of your online connection.</p> <h3>WHOIS Lookups</h3> <p>WHOIS lookups provide doxxers with the ability to take advantage of the WHOIS service to look up any information that is provided about a person who has a domain name holder on the internet. </p> <p><strong>Also Read:</strong> <a href="https://certera.com/blog/end-of-whois-based-dcv-methods-what-you-need-to-know-and-how-to-transition/">The End of WHOIS-Based DCV Methods: What You Need to Know and How to Transition</a></p> <p>You can set up your WHOIS information to be private, but if you forget, your name, address, phone number, and email address will be available to anyone who does a look-up on your domain name.</p> <h3>Hacking</h3> <p>If they cannot acquire your personal information from public sources, doxxers can always use hacking to acquire it. Some common hacking procedures associated with doxxing are setting intrusive code to run <a href="https://certera.com/blog/what-are-zero-day-exploits-attacks-and-vulnerabilities/">zero-day exploits</a>, spreading viruses and malware, brute-force attacks, or any other form of breaking passwords.</p> <h2>Real-world Doxxing Examples</h2> <p>Anyone can end up a victim of doxxing — all it takes is someone who dislikes or disagrees with you enough to go through the trouble of compiling and releasing your info. Doxxing victims have included abortion providers, innocent people wrongly accused of crimes, members of racist groups, and law enforcement officials.</p> <h3>1997- Anti-abortion Doxxing</h3> <p>It is one of the first doxxing campaigns that began in 1997 when anti-abortion activists in the US targeted abortion providers. This insidious doxxing example involved a website called the Nuremberg Files, which published abortion providers’ personal information as a hit list. A 2002 court case found that the site constituted a threat to incite violence, and it was shut down.</p> <h3>2013- Boston Marathon Bombing Dox</h3> <p>After the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, thousands of people gathered on the social media site Reddit and attempted to identify the perpetrator. The Redditors ended up incorrectly identifying and doxxing several suspects — none of whom turned out to be involved in the bombing.</p> <h3>2017- Antifascist Doxxing</h3> <p>In 2017, white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, VA, inspiring some counter-protestors to dox participants. Several neo-Nazis lost their jobs after doxxers revealed their participation in the march. But some innocent people were incorrectly suspected of participating in the march and were flooded with hate mail and threats.</p> <h3>2019- Hong Kong anti-police Doxxing</h3> <p>During Hong Kong’s prolonged protests throughout 2019 and 2020, protestors doxxed thousands of Hong Kong police officers as well as supporters of the city’s law enforcement agencies. This was not limited to doxxing the officers, but also the journalists and the protesters themselves. This escalated the state of unrest in the city.</p> <p><strong>2022-The doxxing of Keffals</strong></p> <p>In a recent turn of events, Keffals, a Canadian Trans activist and content creator, found herself on the receiving end of a high-profile doxxing and swatting campaign that went on for months. </p> <p>After the first swatting ploy, which falsely accused Keffals of plotting to kill her mother and members of the London, Ontario, city council, she was arrested. Upon her release, the harassment by her detractors continued.</p> <p>Keffals moved to a series of residences—all of which were doxxed. The trolls were regularly swatting her at the addresses that had been exposed, calling in dozens of prank food delivery orders, made under her deadname, just to harass her. This happened even after she had moved from Canada to Northern Ireland. </p> <p>While the ethics of doxxing can be really murky — after all, most of the information is public and available on the internet — it can quickly land on the side of nastiness, especially when innocent people are caught in the crossfire.</p> <h2>What to do if you’ve been doxxed?</h2> <p>Here’s what to do if you fall victim to a doxxing incident, or suspect you are being targeted:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Log the evidence</strong>: Take screenshots or other forms of evidence in the event you have to report the incident to the authorities.</li> <li><strong>Lock down your accounts</strong>: Get strong, unique passwords for your accounts and keep these passwords secured in one of the best password managers. Lock down your accounts with <a href="https://certera.com/blog/common-multi-factor-authentication-mfa-risk-and-vulnerabilities/">multi-factor authentication</a> to make your online privacy stronger than ever before.</li> <li><strong>Bring in a friend or family member</strong>: Doxxing can be really rough. It’d be smart if someone would help you sort out the issue, so you’re not handling it on your own.</li> <li><strong>Change your number</strong>: Depending on what information was exposed, you might want to change your phone number, username, or other personally identifying information.</li> <li><strong>Protect data against leaks</strong>: Use security guard software, which will notify you if your personal information is ever compromised in a <a href="https://certera.com/blog/what-is-a-data-breach-top-causes-examples-of-human-error-data-breaches/">data breach</a> or on the <a href="https://certera.com/blog/what-is-the-dark-web-how-does-it-work-how-to-access-it-safely/">dark web</a>. It helps to remove personal information from data broker databases to help reduce the information that information doxxers can obtain about you online.</li> </ul> <h2>How and Where can you Report Doxxing?</h2> <p>To further reduce the vulnerability of the doxxing incident, report it to the appropriate authorities. The culprit may receive a suspension, be banned, or even be criminally charged, which means they will not be able to leak any more of your data or go after other unsuspecting victims.</p> <p><strong>Here is where to report the doxxing incident:</strong></p> <p>Mainstream platforms like Facebook and Twitter have terms of service agreements that prohibit doxxing, and these platforms tend to respond to requests from users and will suspend the account of the doxxer(s).</p> <h3>Report Potential Criminal Cyber Activities:</h3> <p>Quite frequently, doxxing can be a crime. If you have been threatened or otherwise been the victim of criminal harassment, report the incident to your local police department. Documentary proof of these, like photographs, screenshots, or webpage downloads, will also assist the police in taking the appropriate action.</p> <h2>How to Prevent Doxxing?</h2> <p>Doxxing can be awful. It’s all about limiting your exposure online and preventing people from finding information about you. Here’s how to hide your IP address, secure your social media accounts, and stay anonymous online.</p> <h3>Secure your IP address with VPN</h3> <p>You can easily hide your IP address by using one of the hundreds of VPNs or proxies available. This software allows your connection to route through a secure server before you connect to the public internet. Thus, anyone who wants to discover your IP address will be able to see only the IP address of the VPN or proxy server; your IP will remain hidden.</p> <p><strong>Read Also:</strong> <a href="https://certera.com/blog/new-ssl-vpn-symlink-exploit-enables-silent-fortigate-compromise/">New SSL-VPN Symlink Exploit Enables Silent FortiGate Compromise</a></p> <p>Web proxies are mostly free. Some are free, browser-based, and protect only your browser traffic. A good VPN will provide secure access to all of your internet traffic. Nobody will be able to see your online activity, even if you use unsafe public Wi-Fi.</p> <h3>Avoid Third-party Logins</h3> <p>Many sites and apps prompt you to sign in with Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, or another third-party service. When you do this, the websites can request more information about you, and the more sites you use to connect with other online accounts, the easier it is for someone to compile your personal information.</p> <p>If you have signed into a lot of different sites with your Facebook or Google account, a data breach at any one of them could put them all at risk. That makes it really easy for a hacker to get hold of all your personal information and so much harder for you to lock down your accounts.</p> <p>Your social media profiles contain a great deal of information about you: the city you live in (sometimes even your full address), your work history, your birthday, your friends and family members, images, interests, and so forth. All of this information can make doxxing a walk in the park. Even if you don’t believe you have any enemies, you should lock down your social media accounts. </p> <p>Learn how to make your Facebook profile private; consider de-indexing your profile from search engines; tighten your privacy settings on Instagram and other social media services.</p> <h3>Use Pseudonyms on Online Forums</h3> <p>If you have Reddit or other online forum accounts, use a pseudonym when you want to stay anonymous while you browse. Never use your real name as your username, and don’t use personally identifying information in your handle.</p> <p> When creating new accounts, use a unique username for each service. If you reuse handles between sites, a doxxer could start connecting the accounts and finding clues to your identity. Further mask your digital identity using Avast’s private browser.</p> <h3>Request Data Deletion Online</h3> <p>Data brokers aggregate and sell massive volumes of personal data. Data broker companies own vast files that can include your online and offline purchase histories, medical and financial histories, criminal histories, and more. And when data breaches inevitably happen (as they did with Equifax), your information can be leaked for the world to see.</p> <p>If your information ever lands on the dark web, there’s a good chance it will stay there. You can ask to be removed from their database, but, frankly, even with a legal obligation to do so, it is likely to be very time-consuming. It’s also just about impossible to know all the data brokers storing data about you.</p> <h3>Two-Factor Authentication</h3> <p>If your social media profiles and websites are protected by just a password, then you are very easily open to doxxing and other kinds of attacks. <a href="https://certera.com/blog/what-is-multi-factor-authentication-difference-between-2fa-mfa/">Two-factor authentication</a> functions as a great support to the security measure, as it requires an extra source of information to check the identity—for example, SMS verification or a code from an authentication app.</p> <p>While those passwords might have been secure from hacks, these days, one password is not enough. Hackers are getting better and more effective at bypassing passwords by using techniques like keylogging and password spraying. MFA helps keep your profiles and private information more secure from the possibility that it may be hacked and possibly leaked, such as in a doxxing.</p> <h3>Dox Yourself</h3> <p>Step into the shoes of doxxers to better protect yourself from them. By doxxing yourself, you will have an idea of all your personal data that’s out there — and how easily it can be retrieved. Then you can develop a strategy for reducing or eliminating your exposure.</p> <p><strong>Here are a few ways to dox yourself:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Run a search for yourself on Google.</li> <li>Perform a reverse image search.</li> <li>Audit your social media profiles.</li> <li>Search data brokers.</li> <li>Review your resumes, website bios, and personal websites.</li> </ul> <p>If you Google any piece of information about yourself, you will get an idea of what someone can use to dox you.</p> <h3>Set up Google Alerts</h3> <p>If, for some reason, your data should appear online suddenly, it might mean you have been doxxed. Google Alerts helps to inform you if Google finds new results with your data. Set up Google Alerts with your full name, address, phone number, and all your data. Google Alerts is not, after all, totally comprehensive, but it is quite effective.</p> <p><strong>Ever wondered how you’d know if your personal information is being used against you?</strong></p> <p>If you’ve been doxxed, you’ll find out as soon as your information is made public. If you don’t see the data dump yourself, people you know will likely inform you of the doxxing. In the meantime, you may be harassed via social media, email, phone calls, or even in person, depending on the information that was released. If you start receiving threatening messages, lock down all of your accounts.</p> <p>Check if your Facebook account has been hacked and verify your Gmail account is secure. It’s also good to know if your personal information is for sale on the dark web, but it’s only easy to get there with special software.</p> <h2>Concluding Thoughts</h2> <p>Doxxing is a big threat to personal privacy and security at a time when the world is becoming too digital. Being at least alert about what doxxing is, how it is plotted, and measures that can be taken will certainly lower the chances of such an evil practice.</p> <p>At least secure your online presence with strong and unique passwords, two-factor authentication, and private social media profiles. Vigilance, proactivity in keeping track of personal information and promptly reporting incidents are key. </p> <p>But remember, protecting your privacy is a continuous effort; however, being informed serves you best to at least deter doxxing.</p> </div> <p><img decoding="async" src="data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%20132%20132'%3E%3C/svg%3E"></p> <h2> Janki Mehta</h2> <p> Janki Mehta is a passionate Cyber-Security Enthusiast who keenly monitors the latest developments in the Web/Cyber Security industry. She puts her knowledge into practice and helps web users by arming them with the necessary security measures to stay safe in the digital world.</p> </article><p>In today’s digital world, our private information is more accessible than ever. The benefits of the internet pose a significant threat to our privacy and security.</p><p>Doxxing is one such threat, which means publicly revealing private, sensitive, or identifying information about an individual without their consent. This information includes home addresses, emails, phone numbers, workplace details, and other personal details. The intent behind this crime is primarily to harass, intimidate, or harm the targeted individual.</p><p>The recent stats reveal that over <strong>43 million Americans have experienced doxing, and 90% of doxing incidents include the victim’s address</strong>. Also, <strong>3 million people are stalked over the internet yearly</strong>, yet only about 3 get punished under the Interstate Stalking Statute.</p><p>So, continue reading this blog to learn everything about doxing, how it happens, and what you can do to protect yourself.</p><h2>What is Doxing?</h2><p>Although “doxxing” is based on the phrase “dropping dox”, in turn, where “dox” is shorthand for “documents,” the practice is equally hurtful and harmful. Doxxing is the act of researching and broadcasting private or identifying information about another person. Information may be harvested from public databases, hacking, <a href="https://certera.com/blog/phishing-attacks-explained-how-to-spot-and-prevent-online-scams/">phishing</a>, or spoofing. </p><p>Typically, the information is released purposely by doxxers to inflict inconvenience, harm, embarrassment, or humiliation. <strong>Different types of information may be targeted to find out:</strong></p><ul> <li>Real name</li> <li>Contact information</li> <li>Social Security number</li> <li>Address</li> <li>Employer</li> <li>Credit card numbers</li> <li>Bank account information</li> <li>Personal photos</li> <li>Social networking accounts</li> </ul><p>Doxxing itself may not be deemed illegal if the information broadcast is not part of the public record, e.g., arrest records, marriage certificates, major traffic violations, and real estate transactions. Information, however, public, may still be damaging if released. Public records uncovered may be obtained and disclosed without the commission of a misdemeanor. </p><p>Doxxing becomes illegal when information that is not part of the public record is disclosed, such as bank account information, credit card numbers, or birth certificates.</p><p>On Twitch, any kind of doxxing is strictly prohibited and is a violation of the platform’s Community Guidelines. This is true even if the victim’s information is available to the public in some other way. </p><p>If someone has posted your personally identifiable information (PII) on Twitch without your permission, you can submit a report, and Twitch will investigate the issue and take appropriate action against the doxxer.</p><p>If an offending Twitch user reveals your PII in an off-platform setting, you should submit a report to both the offending content and the user on that platform. Twitch can only respond to incidents of doxing on its service, unless a clear and credible violent threat is uncovered. </p><p>The uniqueness of one’s PII makes proactively detecting and preventing doxing a very hard task. However, there are several steps that can be taken by Twitch and its users in order to enforce safety both on and off the platform.</p><h2>How Does Doxxing Work? </h2><p>A doxxer will harvest breadcrumbs about people scattered across the internet and piece together those little bits of information to find the real person behind an alias. Breadcrumb data includes the target’s name, physical address, email address, phone number, and more. Breadcrumb data includes the target’s name, physical address, email address, phone number, and more.</p><p>Doxxers may also buy and sell personal info on the dark web. A doxxer can take tiny pieces of information and piece them together to reveal the real person behind an alias. The real person behind an alias could be revealed by linking tiny pieces of information. </p><p>Traditional doxxing began with an online argument, before progressing to one person digging up information about an adversary.</p><p>More recently, doxxing has involved a popular tool utilized in the culture wars, with activists doxxing those with opposing views. Many politicians, celebrities, and journalists have been doxxed, leading them to suffer from online mobs and even death threats. </p><p>What is doxxing someone is tracking down private information. And although many people think of the internet as anonymous, it’s very much not. There are many ways you can be identified online.</p><h2>The Major Types of Doxxing</h2><p>All types of doxxing involve leaking an individual’s private information, but the specific purpose and nature differ from case to case. <strong>Here are the main categories of doxxing:</strong></p><h3>Harassment Against Celebrities</h3><p>Many high-profile celebrities and other people representing them often become victims of doxxing for real or apparently spurious reasons or just for straightforwardly bothering someone. They are, in fact, dangerously tempting targets for that reason, as a lot of people are curious about the private life of one or another star. </p><p>The consequences of doxing, like revealing celebrity home addresses or leaking their compromising or other sensitive personal information, can be catastrophic.</p><h3>Targeted Doxxing</h3><p>Targeted doxxing is when a singular individual is picked out as a victim, either for who they are or things they’ve supposedly done. Targeted doxxing can be part of coordinated cyberbullying campaigns, a result of personal vendettas, or revenge conduct for some kind of apparent transgression. Sometimes doxers themselves are doxxed in acts of tit-for-tat revenge.</p><h3>Faulty Doxxing</h3><p>Doxxing is used often used by online vigilantes to unmask wrongdoers or by political activists to target their opponents. But this puts the reputations, jobs, and even lives of the victims at risk, and all too often, mistakes are made linking innocent people to situations with which they had nothing to do. </p><p>Tragedies related to the consequences of “faulty doxxing” are seen through the suicide of Sunil Tripathi after he was wrongly doxxed as the Boston Bomber.</p><h3>Swatting</h3><p>Swatting is a particularly extreme form of doxxing in which the swatter uses knowledge of the victim’s location to make a hoax call to emergency services, the aim being to cause armed police to swoop down on their address. </p><p>Not only is swatting illegal, but it’s also potentially fatal — as was the case for an unarmed 28-year-old shot dead by police responding to false reports of a hostage situation at his home.</p><h2>How Doxxers Find Personal Information?</h2><p>Doxxers use a variety of methods to find personal information about their targets. They can find IP addresses, access your social media profiles, use phishing campaigns, buy data from data brokers, and even intercept internet traffic.</p><p>Below are the most common techniques that doxxers use to uncover your details:</p><h3>IP/ISP Doxxing (or ISP Doxxing)</h3><p>When the doxxer finds your IP address, a way to easily track your physical location, they can then engage in a tech support scam using call spoofing apps and <a href="https://certera.com/blog/what-is-social-engineering-techniques-examples-best-practices-preventions/">social engineering</a> to get your ISP to give them personal information like your phone number, email address, date of birth, and social security number.</p><p>Have you really ever not perused every bit of personal information about yourself on your Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts? That information, also, might go back years, and include answers to trivia questions that can be used to get into other accounts that might be more sensitive, but you have long since forgotten the answers to the security questions.</p><p>With every site in your social media sites, there is a mountain of personal data out there. Because you also are probably suffering from FOMO – Fear of Missing Out, you probably haven’t made a single piece of information private. And then there are online social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, 4Chan, Discord, YouTube, etc., and their users give you even more information that will be useful to a doxxer.</p><h3>Data Broker Doxxing</h3><p>These are organizations that compile all the personal information they can find on everyone – all from publicly available records, as well as customer loyalty cards, online search histories, etc. Then they sell this info to advertisers and, of course, to anyone willing to pay for their dinner. </p><p>Then, there are the pages and pages of people-search sites selling comprehensive personal info on everyone. That’s a lot of publicly available data that can be used to dox you.</p><h3>Phishing</h3><p>This involves using fraudulent communications to entice victims into revealing sensitive personal information. Knowing <a href="https://certera.com/blog/phishing-attacks-explained-how-to-spot-and-prevent-online-scams/">how to spot and avoid Apple ID phishing scams</a> and the broader class of spear-phishing attacks is a good way to keep doxxers at bay. </p><p>Then, for additional security, also use the best anti-virus software, like the free version of Avast Antivirus, in order to prevent phishing attacks, spyware, and anything else that might put your identity at risk.</p><p><strong>Also Read:</strong> <a href="https://certera.com/blog/what-is-quishing-qr-phishing-common-attacks-vulnerabilities-and-prevention/">What is Quishing(QR Phishing)?Common Attacks, Vulnerabilities and Prevention</a></p><h3>Sniffing</h3><p>Sniffing involves the practice of eavesdropping on the flow of information across the internet while data packets are in transit from the sender to the receiver. All the doxxer would have to do is utilize sniffing tools to capture your internet traffic and then comb it later for personal information. </p><p>The simplest solution that will save you from a sniffing attack is download a VPN. It gives protection because of the encryption of your online connection.</p><h3>WHOIS Lookups</h3><p>WHOIS lookups provide doxxers with the ability to take advantage of the WHOIS service to look up any information that is provided about a person who has a domain name holder on the internet. </p><p><strong>Also Read:</strong> <a href="https://certera.com/blog/end-of-whois-based-dcv-methods-what-you-need-to-know-and-how-to-transition/">The End of WHOIS-Based DCV Methods: What You Need to Know and How to Transition</a></p><p>You can set up your WHOIS information to be private, but if you forget, your name, address, phone number, and email address will be available to anyone who does a look-up on your domain name.</p><h3>Hacking</h3><p>If they cannot acquire your personal information from public sources, doxxers can always use hacking to acquire it. Some common hacking procedures associated with doxxing are setting intrusive code to run <a href="https://certera.com/blog/what-are-zero-day-exploits-attacks-and-vulnerabilities/">zero-day exploits</a>, spreading viruses and malware, brute-force attacks, or any other form of breaking passwords.</p><h2>Real-world Doxxing Examples</h2><p>Anyone can end up a victim of doxxing — all it takes is someone who dislikes or disagrees with you enough to go through the trouble of compiling and releasing your info. Doxxing victims have included abortion providers, innocent people wrongly accused of crimes, members of racist groups, and law enforcement officials.</p><h3>1997- Anti-abortion Doxxing</h3><p>It is one of the first doxxing campaigns that began in 1997 when anti-abortion activists in the US targeted abortion providers. This insidious doxxing example involved a website called the Nuremberg Files, which published abortion providers’ personal information as a hit list. A 2002 court case found that the site constituted a threat to incite violence, and it was shut down.</p><h3>2013- Boston Marathon Bombing Dox</h3><p>After the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, thousands of people gathered on the social media site Reddit and attempted to identify the perpetrator. The Redditors ended up incorrectly identifying and doxxing several suspects — none of whom turned out to be involved in the bombing.</p><h3>2017- Antifascist Doxxing</h3><p>In 2017, white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, VA, inspiring some counter-protestors to dox participants. Several neo-Nazis lost their jobs after doxxers revealed their participation in the march. But some innocent people were incorrectly suspected of participating in the march and were flooded with hate mail and threats.</p><h3>2019- Hong Kong anti-police Doxxing</h3><p>During Hong Kong’s prolonged protests throughout 2019 and 2020, protestors doxxed thousands of Hong Kong police officers as well as supporters of the city’s law enforcement agencies. This was not limited to doxxing the officers, but also the journalists and the protesters themselves. This escalated the state of unrest in the city.</p><p><strong>2022-The doxxing of Keffals</strong></p><p>In a recent turn of events, Keffals, a Canadian Trans activist and content creator, found herself on the receiving end of a high-profile doxxing and swatting campaign that went on for months. </p><p>After the first swatting ploy, which falsely accused Keffals of plotting to kill her mother and members of the London, Ontario, city council, she was arrested. Upon her release, the harassment by her detractors continued.</p><p>Keffals moved to a series of residences—all of which were doxxed. The trolls were regularly swatting her at the addresses that had been exposed, calling in dozens of prank food delivery orders, made under her deadname, just to harass her. This happened even after she had moved from Canada to Northern Ireland. </p><p>While the ethics of doxxing can be really murky — after all, most of the information is public and available on the internet — it can quickly land on the side of nastiness, especially when innocent people are caught in the crossfire.</p><h2>What to do if you’ve been doxxed?</h2><p>Here’s what to do if you fall victim to a doxxing incident, or suspect you are being targeted:</p><ul> <li><strong>Log the evidence</strong>: Take screenshots or other forms of evidence in the event you have to report the incident to the authorities.</li> <li><strong>Lock down your accounts</strong>: Get strong, unique passwords for your accounts and keep these passwords secured in one of the best password managers. Lock down your accounts with <a href="https://certera.com/blog/common-multi-factor-authentication-mfa-risk-and-vulnerabilities/">multi-factor authentication</a> to make your online privacy stronger than ever before.</li> <li><strong>Bring in a friend or family member</strong>: Doxxing can be really rough. It’d be smart if someone would help you sort out the issue, so you’re not handling it on your own.</li> <li><strong>Change your number</strong>: Depending on what information was exposed, you might want to change your phone number, username, or other personally identifying information.</li> <li><strong>Protect data against leaks</strong>: Use security guard software, which will notify you if your personal information is ever compromised in a <a href="https://certera.com/blog/what-is-a-data-breach-top-causes-examples-of-human-error-data-breaches/">data breach</a> or on the <a href="https://certera.com/blog/what-is-the-dark-web-how-does-it-work-how-to-access-it-safely/">dark web</a>. It helps to remove personal information from data broker databases to help reduce the information that information doxxers can obtain about you online.</li> </ul><h2>How and Where can you Report Doxxing?</h2><p>To further reduce the vulnerability of the doxxing incident, report it to the appropriate authorities. The culprit may receive a suspension, be banned, or even be criminally charged, which means they will not be able to leak any more of your data or go after other unsuspecting victims.</p><p><strong>Here is where to report the doxxing incident:</strong></p><p>Mainstream platforms like Facebook and Twitter have terms of service agreements that prohibit doxxing, and these platforms tend to respond to requests from users and will suspend the account of the doxxer(s).</p><h3>Report Potential Criminal Cyber Activities:</h3><p>Quite frequently, doxxing can be a crime. If you have been threatened or otherwise been the victim of criminal harassment, report the incident to your local police department. Documentary proof of these, like photographs, screenshots, or webpage downloads, will also assist the police in taking the appropriate action.</p><h2>How to Prevent Doxxing?</h2><p>Doxxing can be awful. It’s all about limiting your exposure online and preventing people from finding information about you. Here’s how to hide your IP address, secure your social media accounts, and stay anonymous online.</p><h3>Secure your IP address with VPN</h3><p>You can easily hide your IP address by using one of the hundreds of VPNs or proxies available. This software allows your connection to route through a secure server before you connect to the public internet. Thus, anyone who wants to discover your IP address will be able to see only the IP address of the VPN or proxy server; your IP will remain hidden.</p><p><strong>Read Also:</strong> <a href="https://certera.com/blog/new-ssl-vpn-symlink-exploit-enables-silent-fortigate-compromise/">New SSL-VPN Symlink Exploit Enables Silent FortiGate Compromise</a></p><p>Web proxies are mostly free. Some are free, browser-based, and protect only your browser traffic. A good VPN will provide secure access to all of your internet traffic. Nobody will be able to see your online activity, even if you use unsafe public Wi-Fi.</p><h3>Avoid Third-party Logins</h3><p>Many sites and apps prompt you to sign in with Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, or another third-party service. When you do this, the websites can request more information about you, and the more sites you use to connect with other online accounts, the easier it is for someone to compile your personal information.</p><p>If you have signed into a lot of different sites with your Facebook or Google account, a data breach at any one of them could put them all at risk. That makes it really easy for a hacker to get hold of all your personal information and so much harder for you to lock down your accounts.</p><p>Your social media profiles contain a great deal of information about you: the city you live in (sometimes even your full address), your work history, your birthday, your friends and family members, images, interests, and so forth. All of this information can make doxxing a walk in the park. Even if you don’t believe you have any enemies, you should lock down your social media accounts. </p><p>Learn how to make your Facebook profile private; consider de-indexing your profile from search engines; tighten your privacy settings on Instagram and other social media services.</p><h3>Use Pseudonyms on Online Forums</h3><p>If you have Reddit or other online forum accounts, use a pseudonym when you want to stay anonymous while you browse. Never use your real name as your username, and don’t use personally identifying information in your handle.</p><p> When creating new accounts, use a unique username for each service. If you reuse handles between sites, a doxxer could start connecting the accounts and finding clues to your identity. Further mask your digital identity using Avast’s private browser.</p><h3>Request Data Deletion Online</h3><p>Data brokers aggregate and sell massive volumes of personal data. Data broker companies own vast files that can include your online and offline purchase histories, medical and financial histories, criminal histories, and more. And when data breaches inevitably happen (as they did with Equifax), your information can be leaked for the world to see.</p><p>If your information ever lands on the dark web, there’s a good chance it will stay there. You can ask to be removed from their database, but, frankly, even with a legal obligation to do so, it is likely to be very time-consuming. It’s also just about impossible to know all the data brokers storing data about you.</p><h3>Two-Factor Authentication</h3><p>If your social media profiles and websites are protected by just a password, then you are very easily open to doxxing and other kinds of attacks. <a href="https://certera.com/blog/what-is-multi-factor-authentication-difference-between-2fa-mfa/">Two-factor authentication</a> functions as a great support to the security measure, as it requires an extra source of information to check the identity—for example, SMS verification or a code from an authentication app.</p><p>While those passwords might have been secure from hacks, these days, one password is not enough. Hackers are getting better and more effective at bypassing passwords by using techniques like keylogging and password spraying. MFA helps keep your profiles and private information more secure from the possibility that it may be hacked and possibly leaked, such as in a doxxing.</p><h3>Dox Yourself</h3><p>Step into the shoes of doxxers to better protect yourself from them. By doxxing yourself, you will have an idea of all your personal data that’s out there — and how easily it can be retrieved. Then you can develop a strategy for reducing or eliminating your exposure.</p><p><strong>Here are a few ways to dox yourself:</strong></p><ul> <li>Run a search for yourself on Google.</li> <li>Perform a reverse image search.</li> <li>Audit your social media profiles.</li> <li>Search data brokers.</li> <li>Review your resumes, website bios, and personal websites.</li> </ul><p>If you Google any piece of information about yourself, you will get an idea of what someone can use to dox you.</p><h3>Set up Google Alerts</h3><p>If, for some reason, your data should appear online suddenly, it might mean you have been doxxed. Google Alerts helps to inform you if Google finds new results with your data. Set up Google Alerts with your full name, address, phone number, and all your data. Google Alerts is not, after all, totally comprehensive, but it is quite effective.</p><p><strong>Ever wondered how you’d know if your personal information is being used against you?</strong></p><p>If you’ve been doxxed, you’ll find out as soon as your information is made public. If you don’t see the data dump yourself, people you know will likely inform you of the doxxing. In the meantime, you may be harassed via social media, email, phone calls, or even in person, depending on the information that was released. If you start receiving threatening messages, lock down all of your accounts.</p><p>Check if your Facebook account has been hacked and verify your Gmail account is secure. It’s also good to know if your personal information is for sale on the dark web, but it’s only easy to get there with special software.</p><h2>Concluding Thoughts</h2><p>Doxxing is a big threat to personal privacy and security at a time when the world is becoming too digital. Being at least alert about what doxxing is, how it is plotted, and measures that can be taken will certainly lower the chances of such an evil practice.</p><p>At least secure your online presence with strong and unique passwords, two-factor authentication, and private social media profiles. Vigilance, proactivity in keeping track of personal information and promptly reporting incidents are key. </p><p>But remember, protecting your privacy is a continuous effort; however, being informed serves you best to at least deter doxxing.</p><div class="spu-placeholder" style="display:none"></div><div class="addtoany_share_save_container addtoany_content addtoany_content_bottom"><div class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_20 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="https://securityboulevard.com/2026/01/what-it-doxxing-how-it-happens-and-how-to-stay-safe/" data-a2a-title="What It Doxxing? How It Happens, and How to Stay Safe?"><a class="a2a_button_twitter" href="https://www.addtoany.com/add_to/twitter?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fsecurityboulevard.com%2F2026%2F01%2Fwhat-it-doxxing-how-it-happens-and-how-to-stay-safe%2F&linkname=What%20It%20Doxxing%3F%20How%20It%20Happens%2C%20and%20How%20to%20Stay%20Safe%3F" title="Twitter" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"></a><a class="a2a_button_linkedin" href="https://www.addtoany.com/add_to/linkedin?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fsecurityboulevard.com%2F2026%2F01%2Fwhat-it-doxxing-how-it-happens-and-how-to-stay-safe%2F&linkname=What%20It%20Doxxing%3F%20How%20It%20Happens%2C%20and%20How%20to%20Stay%20Safe%3F" title="LinkedIn" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook" href="https://www.addtoany.com/add_to/facebook?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fsecurityboulevard.com%2F2026%2F01%2Fwhat-it-doxxing-how-it-happens-and-how-to-stay-safe%2F&linkname=What%20It%20Doxxing%3F%20How%20It%20Happens%2C%20and%20How%20to%20Stay%20Safe%3F" title="Facebook" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"></a><a class="a2a_button_reddit" href="https://www.addtoany.com/add_to/reddit?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fsecurityboulevard.com%2F2026%2F01%2Fwhat-it-doxxing-how-it-happens-and-how-to-stay-safe%2F&linkname=What%20It%20Doxxing%3F%20How%20It%20Happens%2C%20and%20How%20to%20Stay%20Safe%3F" title="Reddit" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"></a><a class="a2a_button_email" href="https://www.addtoany.com/add_to/email?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fsecurityboulevard.com%2F2026%2F01%2Fwhat-it-doxxing-how-it-happens-and-how-to-stay-safe%2F&linkname=What%20It%20Doxxing%3F%20How%20It%20Happens%2C%20and%20How%20to%20Stay%20Safe%3F" title="Email" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"></a><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share_save addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share"></a></div></div><p class="syndicated-attribution">*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from <a href="https://certera.com/blog/">EncryptedFence by Certera – Web &amp; Cyber Security Blog</a> authored by <a href="https://securityboulevard.com/author/0/" title="Read other posts by Janki Mehta">Janki Mehta</a>. Read the original post at: <a href="https://certera.com/blog/what-it-doxxing-how-it-happens-and-how-to-stay-safe/">https://certera.com/blog/what-it-doxxing-how-it-happens-and-how-to-stay-safe/</a> </p>