Doxing, also written as Doxxing, is an act of publicly revealing a private person’s personal information on the internet. Word doxing came from ‘dropping dox’, where dox is slang for documents. Personal information about a person could be their original name, address, family information, personal pictures, and documents that should not be present on the internet.

Doxing data is mostly collected from social media websites, hacking methods, and social engineering to shame or threaten a person. This is an old-school method used by hackers as a tactic for revenge.

Example

The famous Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson was a target of celebrity doxing in April 2013 when her social security number, credit card details, and some highly personal pictures were leaked online.