IP Fraud: 5 Common Types,
Risks, and Prevention Strategies

Table of Contents

• 1. Account Takeover (ATO)
• 2. Carding / Payment Fraud
• 3. Ad Fraud (Click Fraud)
• 4. Content Scraping
• 5. Spam / Fake Accounts
• Prevention Strategies

1. Account Takeover (ATO)

Attackers use stolen credentials to login to legitimate user accounts. They use rotating residential proxies to bypass "rate limit by IP" rules.

2. Carding / Payment Fraud

Testing thousands of stolen credit card numbers on your checkout page. This can get your Stripe/PayPal account banned due to excessive declines.

3. Ad Fraud (Click Fraud)

Bots clicking your ads to drain your budget or clicking your competitor's ads to drain theirs. Often originates from datacenter IPs.

4. Content Scraping

Competitors stealing your pricing, product descriptions, or proprietary data. They copy your site to create SEO spam farms.

5. Spam / Fake Accounts

Creating thousands of accounts to post spam links in comments or forums.

Prevention Strategies

The common denominator in all these attacks is the use of Proxies, VPNs, and Datacenter IPs to hide identity.

Prevention is simple: Don't trust the IP. Verify it.

FAQs