How To Use Residential Proxies For Network Security

We face hundreds of security risks whenever we surf the internet and check up Amazon stores for a black Friday shopping discount. There’s technically always someone trying to collect your browsing history, track online activities, and hijack your internet sessions. What’s worse is that, you can be completely oblivious to all these.

Should you be worried? Yes and No!

Yes because, approximately 801,000 cybersecurity attacks were reported in 2022 alone. And this figure keeps going up. But you also don’t have any cause for alarm if you’re already using a residential proxy cheap.

In this article, we will do a quick review of residential proxies and how you can use one to protect your network.

What Is A Residential Proxy?

Residential proxies are more or less middle men or intermediary servers provided by an Internet Service Provider. These servers stand between your device and the internet.

So anytime you send a request from your device network, a residential proxy masks the original IP address and makes it look like the request was sent from another IP address.

But why is it called “Residential”? That’s because each of the IP addresses used to mask yours are attached to a residential location or home. This adds a layer of authenticity and tells the receiving server that the request is from a real person, not bots.

Residential Proxies Vs. Data Center Proxies

Data Center proxies do almost the same thing as residential proxies except for a few differences in source, cost, and sometimes, speed.

In Terms Of IP Source

Residential proxies are from ISPs and pose lesser risk of being blacklisted. On the other hand, datacenter proxies are generated by a large facility of data centers that were primarily built to host servers. The downside to this is that datacenters proxies are usually seen as bot proxies and can easily be blacklisted by websites.

As For Speed

Datacenter proxies have a slightly higher browsing speed compared to residential proxies. This is because the browsing speed of a residential proxy depends on several straining factors such as internet connection, quality, and geographical distance of the residential proxy server from a user.

Lastly, Cost

While Residential proxies might not be the fastest when it comes to speed, it’s just a small difference. In other areas such as authenticity and effectiveness in protecting your network, they are more reliable than datacenter proxies. That’s also why residential proxies cost more.

5 Ways To Use Residential Proxies For Network Security

We’ve explored some of the strongpoints of two major proxies above and why people choose to buy a static residential proxy over datacenter proxies. Click here to deep dive for more insights.

Now, let’s see how residential proxies can protect your network.

Conceal IP Address For Anonymity

An IP address is like a personal identity for internet users. While it won't reveal your personal information, it can at least help others know your geo-location, city, and even zip code.  You can look up “What is My IP Location? ” to find out the location associated with your IP.

Hackers can also find out who your ISP is and use your IP address to send targeted ads including DDOS attacks. Once that happens, you're at higher risk of cyber threats and fraud.

That's where residential proxies come. If you're the type that accesses high risk websites or login to online stores multiple times a day, you should buy a static residential proxy to secure your network. Alternatively, if speed and reliability are your priorities, you can buy ISP proxies, which offer faster connections with the same level of security for seamless online activity.

Same thing applies to those that try to download premium files for free from third party sites. Most of these websites are on the radar of hackers and can hijack your sessions.

Another situation where you should install a residential proxy is if you want to track and monitor your competitors online. Competitors usually put measures in place to block out spying eyes, and your original IP address can get blacklisted.

Protect Browsing Data And Activity

ISPs can keep a record of your internet activities in order to provide the best user experience as they say. However, that means your data is out open especially if you're carrying out high risk searches.

To avoid this, I'm sure you've most likely used incognito modes on browsers like Chrome or Safari before. And the essence is to ensure you don't leave behind a browsing history.

But that's not ideal if you want to retain your data for some other time. In this case, you should consider buying a static residential proxy instead.

A residential proxy server will reroute your request through multiple channels and addresses. By doing this, the receiving server won't be able to link the request to you.

That means, no one will know who sent the request except you and your ISP.

It's also important that you get your residential proxy from a reliable provider to prevent data leak, though that's unlikely.

Use IP Rotation To Prevent Unsolicited Tracking

Remember we talked about how residential proxies can reroute your request through multiple IP addresses, ensuring there's no identifiable link between the request sent and your original IP?

Using rotating residential proxies does not only prevent anyone from linking a request to you; it can also ensure no one tracks or spies on you through any means.

First off, IP tracking leaves you at the mercy of company advertisers and various organizations. But the bad part is, hackers can also do the same thing.

And when hackers track your IP, it's usually to coordinate geo-location scam attacks, brute force IP attacks, and sometimes social engineering attacks.

Each of these malicious intents puts your credit information and Personally Identifiable Information at high risk.

Perform Cybersecurity Tests On Business Networks

Note that you're not the only one that has access to residential proxies. Hackers do too.

This means they can use a residential proxy to deceive your network securities and bypass restrictions. It’s important to understand what is network monitoring and use it to detect and prevent unauthorized access or security breaches.

For instance, hackers can use residential proxies to avoid a series of restrictions including the geo-location and bot filtering measures when spoofing a web application network.

To protect against this, you should reverse the game. Set up a rotating residential proxy with a vast pool of functional IP addresses to breach your network's defenses. See if there are lapses or loops that hackers can take advantage of, including vulnerabilities that could lead to a Watering Hole Attack. Then address them.

See if there are lapses or loops that hackers can take advantage of. Then address them. You can also hire cybersecurity experts through a Google search, which allows businesses to quickly find qualified professionals, compare services, and read reviews, making it easier to select the right experts to safeguard their digital assets. Most of these companies show in top positions through investing in Cybersecurity SEO services which means they optimize their websites with industry-specific keywords, create valuable content to improve search engine rankings, attract more organic traffic, and position themselves as trusted authorities in the cybersecurity field.

Access Geo-restricted Content

While accessing geo-restricted content has nothing to do with your network security, it can at least improve your browsing experience.

Residential proxies provide IP addresses from different real locations. And using them with your personal network is a great idea to bypass content or platform restrictions.

Let's say you're traveling to some regions where certain webpages or channels like YouTube can't be accessed, just switch to an IP address that's allowed and surf freely.

Indirectly, this also ensures you don't go searching for third-party alternatives which can actually put you right at the doorstep of the next-neighbor hacker.

Conclusion

Network security is one of the top, crucial modern day concerns beside AI taking over humanity. Haha!

To prevent anyone from spying on your IP address or tracking your internet activities, you should buy a static residential proxy and install.

Beside maintaining anonymity, a residential proxy also comes in handy when you want to do security checks on your web application networks. This way, you can be sure there's no gap for hackers to exploit.