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<!doctype html> <html> <head> <title>Abuse Issues</title> <meta charset="utf-8" /> <meta http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" /> <link rel="stylesheet" href="/_css/2022/iana_website.css"/> <link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/ico" href="/_img/bookmark_icon.ico"/> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_js/jquery.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_js/iana.js"></script> </head> <body> <header> <div id="header"> <div id="logo"> <a href="/"><img src="/_img/2022/iana-logo-header.svg" alt="Homepage"/></a> </div> <div class="navigation"> <ul> <li><a href="/domains">Domains</a></li> <li><a href="/protocols">Protocols</a></li> <li><a href="/numbers">Numbers</a></li> <!-- <li><a href="/news">News</a></li>--> <li><a href="/about">About</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </header> <div id="body"> <article class="hemmed sidenav"> <main> <h1>Does it look like we’re attacking you?</h1> <p>Some of the most common things we hear are “My network is under attack by IANA!” and “IANA is spamming me!” If you think this is the case, please take a few moments to read this page.</p> <p>The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, or IANA, is responsible for the global coordination of IP addresses. Most of the used numbers are allocated via a regional allocation system to your ISP, which then automatically assigns one or more to you.</p> <p>There are, however, special sets of numbers that are designed not to be assigned to any particular person. Instead, they are general allocations that are either used in special ways, or designed for people to use internally within local networks. <p>These numbers are primarily in the following ranges:</p> <ul> <li>Begins with <strong>10.</strong> (i.e. 10.0.0.0 through to 10.255.255.255)</li> <li>Begins with <strong>127.</strong></li> <li>Begins with <strong>169.254.</strong></li> <li>Begins with <strong>172.16.</strong> through <strong>172.31.</strong></li> <li>Begins with <strong>192.168.</strong></li> <li>Shows up in your logs with a name like <strong>blackhole-1.iana.org</strong></li> </ul> <p>There are additional ranges of numbers that are also marked as “IANA Reserved” and similarly are not operated by IANA, although these are the most common ones we receive abuse reports concerning.</p> <p>If you are seeing unexplained Internet traffic to your computer from these numbers, it is important to remember the following things:</p> <ul> <li>The traffic <b>does not come from IANA</b>. As the authority for IP addresses, we have simply reserved these numbers in our databases, but we do not use or operate them, and we are not the source of the traffic.</li><br/> <li>As use of these numbers is untracked and unrestricted, we <b>can not tell you who is using these numbers</b>.</li><br/> <li>It is <b>perfectly normal</b> to see traffic from these numbers if you have a small home or office network. By default, most routers and access points use these numbers to assign to your local computers. <b>It is most likely these numbers represent computers on your own internal network.</b></li><br/> <li>If you see these numbers in the headers of an unsolicited email, they usually indicate transit between servers within a corporate network or ISP. They are <b>not useful in identifying the origin of an email</b>. In such cases you can usually <b>find the true origin by looking for the earliest “Received” mail header</b> that is not an IANA Reserved address.</li><br/> </ul> <p>For more information on this topic, please read our more detailed <a href="/help/abuse-answers">Abuse Questions and Answers</a>.</p> </main> <nav id="sidenav"> <div class="navigation_box"> <h2>Number Resources</h2> <ul> <li id="nav_num_top"><a href="/numbers">Overview</a></li> <li id="nav_num_rir"><a href="/numbers/allocations/">RIR Allocation Data</a></li> <ul id="nav_num_rir_sub"> <li id="nav_num_rir_top"><a href="/numbers/allocations/">Overview</a></li> <li id="nav_num_rir_afrinic_ip"><a href="/numbers/allocations/afrinic/ipv6/">IPv6 (AFRINIC)</a></li> <li id="nav_num_rir_apnic_ip"><a href="/numbers/allocations/apnic/ipv6/">IPv6 (APNIC)</a></li> <li id="nav_num_rir_arin_ip"><a href="/numbers/allocations/arin/ipv6/">IPv6 (ARIN)</a></li> <li id="nav_num_rir_lacnic_ip"><a href="/numbers/allocations/lacnic/ipv6/">IPv6 (LACNIC)</a></li> <li id="nav_num_rir_ripe_ip"><a href="/numbers/allocations/ripencc/ipv6/">IPv6 (RIPE NCC)</a></li> <li id="nav_num_rir_afrinic_asn"><a href="/numbers/allocations/afrinic/asn/">ASN (AFRINIC)</a></li> <li id="nav_num_rir_apnic_asn"><a href="/numbers/allocations/apnic/asn/">ASN (APNIC)</a></li> <li id="nav_num_rir_arin_asn"><a href="/numbers/allocations/arin/asn/">ASN (ARIN)</a></li> <li id="nav_num_rir_lacnic_asn"><a href="/numbers/allocations/lacnic/asn/">ASN (LACNIC)</a></li> <li id="nav_num_rir_ripe_asn"><a href="/numbers/allocations/ripencc/asn/">ASN (RIPE NCC)</a></li> </ul> <li id="nav_num_abuse"><a href="/abuse">Abuse Issues</a></li> <ul id="nav_num_abuse_sub"> <li id="nav_num_abuse_top"><a href="/abuse">Overview</a></li> <li id="nav_num_abuse_answers"><a href="/abuse/answers">Questions and Answers</a></li> </ul> </ul> </div> </nav> </article> </div> <footer> <div id="footer"> <table class="navigation"> <tr> <td class="section"><a href="/domains">Domain Names</a></td> <td class="subsection"> <ul> <li><a href="/domains/root">Root Zone Registry</a></li> <li><a href="/domains/int">.INT Registry</a></li> <li><a href="/domains/arpa">.ARPA Registry</a></li> <li><a href="/domains/idn-tables">IDN Repository</a></li> </ul> </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="section"><a href="/numbers">Number Resources</a></td> <td class="subsection"> <ul> <li><a href="/abuse">Abuse Information</a></li> </ul> </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="section"><a href="/protocols">Protocols</a></td> <td class="subsection"> <ul> <li><a href="/protocols">Protocol Registries</a></li> <li><a href="/time-zones">Time Zone Database</a></li> </ul> </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="section"><a href="/about">About Us</a></td> <td class="subsection"> <ul> <li><a href="/performance">Performance</a></li> <li><a href="/reports">Reports</a></li> <li><a href="/reviews">Reviews</a></li> <li><a href="/about/excellence">Excellence</a></li> <!-- <li><a href="/news">News</a></li>--> <li><a href="/contact">Contact Us</a></li> </ul> </td> </tr> </table> <div id="custodian"> <p>The IANA functions coordinate the Internet’s globally unique identifiers, and are provided by <a href="http://pti.icann.org">Public Technical Identifiers</a>, an affiliate of <a href="http://www.icann.org/">ICANN</a>.</p> </div> <div id="legalnotice"> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy">Privacy Policy</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos">Terms of Service</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </footer> <script> $(document).ready(function() { $("#nav_num_abuse").addClass("selected") $("#nav_num_abuse_top").addClass("selected") }); </script> </body> </html>