Doxing (or Doxxing) is the act of broadcasting private or personally identifiable information on the internet, usually with the aim of causing reputational damage to the victim. Potential victims may find that they will be blackmailed for a payment, with the threat of the sharing of the stolen data in the event of non-compliance.
The sharing of private conversations, images or videos are some of the more popular private information that is often shared when doxxing. It is also common for attackers to publish personally identifiable information of their victims engaging in behaviour that others may disagree with, with the intended aim of shaming the victim.
With large doxxing attacks, massive amounts of data may be released. Email correspondence of victims (especially large organisations) is a common occurrence. However, one major problem with the release of such data is that amongst the many potential emails (sometimes numbering in the thousands, tens of thousands, or even more), although much of the data may be real, it can be difficult to know whether any faked entries have also been included amongst the real ones.
Last updated: 3 September 2017