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IP netblocks can be considered a neighborhood to which consecutive IP addresses belong. As in the real world, there are good and bad neighborhoods. Fortunately, sophisticated threat intelligence tools enable security engineers to distinguish one from the other.

Traditionally, users can check computers communicating over a network by using a simple ping command to find unresponsive or misbehaving nodes. A ping test sends packets to a server and reveals if the same number of packets were returned, as well as how long it took the destination to issue a response.

Ping tests may be sufficient for network discovery, especially in private networks. However, other tasks may require critical IP intelligence data, such as a WHOIS IP block, for threat hunting and marketing applications. An IP Netblocks WHOIS Database can provide complete ownership histories of IP ranges that can help users determine if these were involved in previous attacks.

Both the burgeoning use of the Internet and the growing incidence of cybercrime call for insightful information on IP addresses that may be involved in malicious activities. As part of its mandate to maintain Web integrity, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) coordinates the global assignment of IP addresses and Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs).

IANA specifically works with the regional Internet registry (RIR) Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC) to maintain a database of IP addresses for Europe, West Asia, and the former Soviet Union. And so, anyone who wishes to find more information about an IP address from this region must do a RIPE NCC IP lookup.

More and more professionals rely on IP intelligence sources such as IP Netblocks WHOIS Database to learn more about IP addresses and their ranges (consecutively numbered sets of IP addresses). Many, however, do not have a full understanding of how IP netblocks and addresses are broken down in the first place and why this information can be useful.

Essentially, IP addresses are numbers from 0 to 536,870,911. Their distribution amongst users is done by Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR). The idea is that the whole interval is split into parts assigned to different bodies responsible for them. These bodies will then split their IP address intervals into smaller ones and delegate their administration to other bodies or end-users. So finally the smallest intervals will have actual owners, or, vice versa, owners will have one or more intervals.

Who are behind IP addresses? The use of netblocks data

The virtual world of the Internet can be linked to physical entities such as organizations or individuals via only a few techniques. One of the possibilities is to start from the IP address: the unique number associated with each machine connected to the Internet. As such an address is technically essential for any networked machine to operate and each Internet communication to take place, it is a very efficient and viable approach revealing the ownership of the infrastructure and the hierarchy behind its definition.