IP ADDRESS CHANGES

[ALF28]

MY VM IP address in modem mode has changed yesterday and now says I am located in Huddersfield  which is incorrect. I spoke to the help line and they are looking into this and raised a ticket but may take 5 days for them to ring me back, I did a pin reset on my hub 3 and in router mode it now indicates I am located in Glasgow and in modem mode located in Huddersfield.

As both locations are not where I live, but hundreds of miles away, that is not my usual map location.

Have VM been changing the IP addresses? or has my hub been hacked?

Will the locations be corrected, or is something else going on here that is not normal and never had that before,

My previous VM  IP address  from 2 day ago before the change,  which was in use for a good while is still listed in my own location so may have been given to another person in my area.

What is going on here?

However it works OK and both my hub3 and router seem normal but a few strange entries in the network log occurred when the Ip addresses changed.

[Tudor · Accepted solution]

You have not been hacked, impossible on a DOCIS network. This is quiet normal, VM have just done a reconfiguration of their CMTS to redistribute IP4 addresses. The location will eventually sort itself out. Why does it matter?

[ALF28]

Thanks for the quick response, I suspected it may be VM  doing a reconfiguration, however the help line 150 indicated I might have been hacked which had me worried as I was not aware VM were doing these changes.

I only picked it from my email activity last 2 access, that the location was not normal and IP had changed.

Recently I had an outage and lost broadband and the phone overnight, which was resolved.

Also yesterday by co-incidence one of my mobile phones  (not VM) had an attempt to gain access to the phone account which failed, so I did not have a good day, all happening at the same time and I was doing some security checks on my emails.

[Ashleigh_C]

Hi there @ALF28 

Thank you so much for your post and welcome back to the forums.

We are so sorry that you have faced this issue but if a ticket has been raised this does mean our team will investigate this with you and do all they can to resolve this with you. 

Please do monitor this and let us know how things are looking?

[ALF28]

No reply yet from the ticket regarding the Ip address change, my IP location in hub 3 modem mode is Huddersfield which I presume is the business address of VM which is 99 miles from my own actual location.

If I look at my own router settings I can see the VM IP address, and it also has a default gateway IP address which is different and has my correct location.

I use the Cloudfare DNS settings rather than VM DNS,  but do not think that makes any difference to the IP address.

In modem mode no information is available on the settings page for the hub 3 regarding  the IP address.

I have also noticed that some websites do not display correctly since the IP address has changed, and the images do not show just the text which is unusual and specifically when doing a search on the VM IP address.?

[Roger_Gooner]

VM probably gets its IP address blocks from the RIPE RIR, and blocks from RIRs may cover wide geographic areas and not be specific to any particular region or locality. So, it's not at all uncommon to get a new IP address from a different part of the country.

[Akua_A]

Sorry to hear you have not heard back regarding the raised IT ticket @ALF28 To best look into this, we are sending you a private message. Please keep an eye out for an envelope at the top right corner of your Forum page. Let me know if you have any issues locating this. I'll be in touch soon
Thanks,

[ALF28]

Thanks roger, I have had many  IP address changes over the years by VM but the location has always been correct for my area.

There are some unusual things I noticed.-

The Hudddersfield IP location is not the usual host name, but a totally different one, not the one associated with my area/location and  with thousands of sub domains.

Yet If I check the ripe who is record the location for the IP is correct yet it  still displays the wrong town.

The difference seems to be in modem mode, the IP address is down as Huddersfield, 99 miles away.

If I switch the hub 3 back into router mode, which it is now, the IP address, host name are normal for my area and the location is corrected now (previously was incorrect as Glasgow)

I have had no response from the IT ticket yet so will chase it through the private message. The help line assistant indicated hacking, but may just be VM doing changes.

I have been with VM for 23 years, and the location of my IP address has always been correct both in modem mode or hub router mode, so this is unusual and the host name has changed but only in modem mode, in hub router mode the host name is correct for my area.

Perhaps in time the modem location will be corrected, i will leave it a while before switching back to modem mode to see if will then correct.

As no one else is reporting this issue, it may just be me that is affected for some unknown reason?

I have kept a record of all the VM  IP addresses each time it has changed which helps, there have been many changes over the years by VM or each time a new mac address is presented.

[ALF28]

VM IP address changes-dynamic-

I did a search and the following events can change the Ip address-

1. Different MAC address is presented to their DHCP server. e.g. Switching between router and modem mode
2. They reconfigure their side of the network i.e. make a config change that redistributes IP addresses on the network
3. General network maintenance or an extended period of downtime can then mean you get a different IP once the DHCP server is contacted again

Also with these unexpected IP changes, I wondered if I should be using a VPN to give extra protection?

I have also had some recent issues with some web sites and pages but they were resolved by resetting my edge browser, clearing browser history or using a different browser, not sure if the IP address changing causes any issues.

As I have my own router normally, but now disconnected, I wondered if that could be responsible for my IP changing as it is not part of the VM setup.

[Roger_Gooner]

When in modem mode the hub's modem passes the IP address to the router.