Measured Risk
IP 196.251.83.16, registered to the network operator CHEAPY-HOST in the Seychelles (country code SC), presents a medium-risk profile with a threat level of 5 out of 10, though its current activity is minimal. This address carries a substantial historical abuse record of 1,531 cumulative reports, with email spam identified as the dominant threat category in recent detections. Despite the elevated lifetime report count, the activity frequency score of 0 out of 10 indicates that the IP has exhibited negligible hostile behavior in the most recent observation window, suggesting possible remediation, reassignment, or a cooling-off period following enforcement actions.
The 1,531 total reports against 196.251.83.16 were generated across 20 distinct automated honeypot sensors, with all recent threat reports specifically categorizing the activity as email spam. The concentration of reports in a single threat category points to a focused abuse pattern rather than opportunistic scanning across multiple vectors. The November 2025 reporting window indicates this activity was observed within a compressed timeframe, which explains the high per-sensor report density. CHEAPY-HOST, as an operator, may provide low-cost hosting infrastructure frequently abused for bulk mailing operations due to limited abuse-response resources.
Email spam originating from this IP poses concrete risks to recipients, including phishing credential theft, malware distribution through malicious attachments, and downstream reputation damage for mail servers that receive and process the unsolicited messages. Even a low-activity IP can resume operations if the underlying hosting environment remains permissive. The gap between the high cumulative report volume and the current activity score suggests that while the immediate threat may be reduced, the infrastructure retains abuse potential unless the operator implements stricter outbound mail controls or the IP is proactively blocked by mail providers.
Site operators should block or rate-limit inbound SMTP connections from 196.251.83.16 at the mail gateway firewall layer. Implementing SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication protocols will reduce the effectiveness of any future spoofed-domain campaigns leveraging this address. Reputation-based email filters should be configured to reject or quarantine messages from known spam-source IPs. Continuous monitoring with tools such as fail2ban applied to SMTP services will provide automated response to repeated connection attempts from similar patterns.