What is doxing and what is doing doxing?

By: Carlota Gatius

In an increasingly digitalized environment where a lot of personal or business information appears online, various types of attacks have emerged over time.

In this case, we want to explain everything about doxing, what it consists of, and why it is important to take action in this regard.

What is Doxing?

As mentioned earlier, we can say that doxing is a concept that has gained popularity over time. Defined as "leaving documents," doxing can be described as the act of revealing someone’s confidential information online.

In other words, to understand what doxing is, we can say it is a type of attack employed by hackers to harass, threaten, or simply harm others by revealing their personal information. Some of the data that is typically affected includes things like name, address, workplace, and other significant personal details that should not be exposed publicly. Certainly, doxing is an unauthorized disclosure of information.

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How Does Doxing Work and What Types Are There?

Now that we know what doxing is, it is important to understand how this activity works. As mentioned earlier, doxing is an action carried out by individuals called "doxers." These people collect information about someone, generally private details that are scattered across the internet, gather it, and reveal everything about the person behind an alias. Often, this personal information can also be bought and sold on what is known as the dark web.

In this sense, there are several types of doxing today. The most important ones are:

IP Doxing

IP doxing occurs when the doxer obtains someone's IP address, which is also connected to their physical location. The doxer then uses various tools to trick the Internet Service Provider (ISP) into revealing information about the person they want to attack. With this manipulation, a significant amount of information about the person can be obtained.

Data Broker Doxing

In the second type, some doxers purchase personal information about their targets from data brokers. These are companies that gather people’s information with the purpose of selling it. Although brokers typically sell information to advertisers, there are also sites where they can sell it to anyone, including loyalty card data, search history, licenses, government records, and more.

Social Media Doxing

Finally, another major type of doxing is done through social media. This involves collecting personal information from social media accounts, including details like location, workplace, visited sites, names of family and friends, photos, and more. Much of this information is also used by doxers as potential answers to security questions for other accounts.

What to Do in Case of Doxing?

To assist users in doxing cases, Google allows the removal of personally identifiable information that could lead to significant risks such as fraud, identity theft, and harmful direct contact. This includes doxing.

To remove doxing content, the requesting user must meet two requirements. The first is that their contact information must appear. The second is that it includes threats, either implicit or explicit, or there are calls from other users to harm or harass. Once the request for removal of doxing links from Google search results is submitted, it must be reviewed by Google, and the user must wait for a notification. However, there are cases where the request might be rejected due to lack of information or if Google deems it unnecessary.

For cases where this happens, at 202 Digital Reputation, we specialize in the removal of information and have the tools and knowledge needed to act in doxing cases. Contact us to learn more about it.