Substantial Risk
IP 167.86.74.173 is a German IP address operated by Contabo GmbH (AS51167) that presents a significant threat profile, accumulating 3,271 abuse reports within a single month of activity to earn a threat level of 7 out of 10. Automated honeypot sensors detected the address primarily for hacking-related intrusion attempts, with secondary email spam indicators, suggesting the infrastructure is actively engaged in credential attacks and mass-mailing operations targeting exposed services.
The data reveals a concentrated burst of malicious activity during January 2026, with 20 independent honeypot sources filing reports against this single address. Of the categorized incidents, 17 flagged hacking activity while 3 documented email spam, and the supplemental attack-pattern data confirms SMTP abuse and attack-connection behavior. Despite the extremely high report volume, the activity frequency score of 0 out of 10 indicates the IP is not currently engaging with sensors at the time of analysis, suggesting either intermittent operation or that the address has shifted tactics. The 62% confidence score reflects some ambiguity in attribution but remains sufficiently high to warrant defensive action, particularly given that the detection landscape encompasses multiple independent sensor types.
The dominant hacking classification encompasses unauthorized access attempts, vulnerability exploitation and credential-based attacks conducted at scale. An IP generating thousands of abuse reports across honeypot infrastructure signals systematic reconnaissance and automated attack tooling rather than incidental scanning. The SMTP spam component compounds the risk, as mass-emailing infrastructure often doubles as a platform for phishing distribution or credential-harvesting campaigns. For any organization running exposed services, particularly those accepting remote connections or operating mail servers, this address represents a known threat vector with demonstrated hostile intent.
Site operators should block 167.86.74.173 at the network perimeter immediately given its elevated threat rating. Deploying fail2ban or equivalent intrusion-prevention tools to dynamically ban repeated authentication failures will mitigate brute-force attempts. All exposed services must be kept current with security patches and hardened against common attack patterns. For mail-receiving infrastructure, implementing SPF, DKIM and DMARC validation reduces the impact of any spam origination attempts. Maintaining heightened monitoring of authentication logs for connections originating from this address will help identify whether any intrusion attempts have succeeded despite defensive controls.