IP address spoofing is the creation of Internet Protocol (IP) packets with a fake source IP address. The purpose of changing the IP address is to hide the true source IP address or to act as a trusted source.
Computer networks mainly communicate through sending and receiving IP packets. The header of each IP packet contains among other things the IP address of the sender. When the IP address has been spoofed, it is replaced with random numbers or with a trusted IP address.
This method is used for Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks. The objective of a DoS attack is to overwhelm the target with traffic. Using IP spoofing makes blocking the requests difficult since they come from many source addresses and it covers up the identity of the hacker. IP spoofing is also used to bypass firewalls and IP authorisation. For this purpose, the hacker uses a trusted IP address to get into a closed computer network. Once in, they can freely look around inside if the target doesn’t use other authentication methods.
Synonym(s):
- IP spoofing
