IP Threat Report
188.166.172.38
ABUSE.MOM — BEHAVE OR GET EXPOSED
Geolocation & Classification
Detection Signatures
| Signature | Description | Points | Severity |
|---|---|---|---|
| 404 ratio 40-60% | Majority of requests returned 404 — enumeration | +15 | |
| Danger medium hits: 2 | Medium-risk: admin panels, config files | +20 | |
| Danger strong hits: 2 | High-risk paths: shells, RCE vectors, exploits | +50 | |
| Probe 302→404 | Behavioral anomaly detected by automated analysis | +20 | |
| UA suspicious | Behavioral anomaly detected by automated analysis | +15 |
Observed Activity
Reconstructed HTTP requests from server access logs. Target domains redacted for security.
* Typical request patterns for detected signatures. Actual target domains are redacted.
Timeline
Network Provider
We have detected 6980 malicious IPs from this autonomous system.
Recommendations
Actions taken & recommended
- IP 188.166.172.38 is blocked at application level (HTTP 403)
- Consider blocking at firewall level (iptables/CSF) to reduce server load
- Other malicious IPs detected in the same /24 subnet — consider blocking 188.166.172.0/24
- Report abuse to the network provider via their abuse contact
- Ensure sensitive files (.env, .git, backups) are not accessible from the web
🔎 Directory Scan Defense
IP 188.166.172.38 is enumerating directories. Configure fail2ban apache-404 jail after 10+ 404 errors. Disable directory listings. Normalize all 404 responses.
🤖 Bot Detection
Address UA spoofing from 188.166.172.38: maintain blocklist of known malicious UA strings, require consistent UA across sessions, implement TLS fingerprinting.
Neighbors in 188.166.172.0/24
Other blocked IPs from the same /24 subnet — indicates systematic abuse from this network range.
Blacklist Status (DNSBL)
This IP was checked against major DNS-based blacklists used by mail servers and firewalls worldwide.
Checked: Spamhaus, SpamCop, Barracuda, SORBS, CBL, UCEProtect. Results may change over time.
Threat Analysis
188.166.172.38 has been assigned a threat score of 120/100 (Critical). With this rating, the IP falls into the critical severity bracket — among the most dangerous addresses in our monitoring database.
The following attack categories were identified:
📊 Threat Analysis
Network traffic from 188.166.172.38, located in Slough, United Kingdom, operating on the network of DigitalOcean, LLC, has been classified as malicious by our automated threat scoring engine. Over a period of 5 days, this IP generated 81 malicious requests, averaging approximately 16.2 requests per day. This address belongs to a datacenter or cloud hosting provider. Hosting IPs are frequently leveraged by threat actors who rent cheap VPS instances specifically for conducting attacks. The dual attack vectors of Path Enumeration combined with User-Agent Anomaly indicate a coordinated assault rather than opportunistic scanning. United Kingdom currently accounts for 3,202 blocked IPs in our database, making it a major source of malicious traffic. At 120/100, this is an extremely high-risk address. All traffic should be considered hostile.
This IP belongs to a hosting or data center provider. Malicious traffic from hosting infrastructure often originates from compromised VPS instances, rented servers used for scanning campaigns, or abused free-tier cloud accounts. Hosting providers typically respond to abuse reports within 24-72 hours.
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💡 API Abuse and Enumeration
Modern attacks increasingly target APIs rather than traditional web interfaces. Attackers enumerate endpoints, test for broken authentication, and exploit excessive data exposure. API attacks are harder to detect as they mimic legitimate programmatic access patterns.
💡 Credential Stuffing at Scale
Credential stuffing uses stolen username-password pairs from data breaches to attempt logins across many websites. Since users frequently reuse passwords, these automated attacks achieve success rates of 0.1-2%, which translates to thousands of compromised accounts from millions of attempts.