Medium Threat
IP 198.55.98.165 is a moderate-risk address operated by Kprohost LLC (AS214940) that has accumulated 590 abuse reports primarily linked to email spam activity, according to automated honeypot sensors. The United States-based IP presents a threat level of 5/10 with a confidence score of 56%, indicating reasonably confirmed but not overwhelming evidence of malicious behavior during its active reporting window in September 2025.
The dataset reveals 20 individual incident reports specifically categorized as email spam originating from automated honeypot detections, with all reported activity confined to a single month-long window. Despite the substantial total report count of 590, the activity frequency metric of 0/10 suggests these reports may represent a burst of concentrated abuse rather than sustained persistent scanning. The IP's assignment within AS214940, a network operated by Kprohost LLC, places this address within a commercial hosting environment that is frequently exploited for bulk email distribution due to its relatively permissive routing characteristics.
Email spam remains one of the most common threat vectors used to deliver phishing schemes, malware, and unsolicited commercial content at scale. An IP reputation flagged for email abuse can damage deliverability for any domain that shares infrastructure with the offending address and may trigger automatic blocklisting by major email service providers. For organizations operating exposed mail transfer agents, relaying or accepting connections from poorly managed sources introduces downstream risk to recipient inboxes and organizational credibility.
Site operators should implement rigorous sender verification standards including SPF, DKIM, and DMARC protocols to prevent unauthorized relay through their infrastructure. Mail servers should be configured to reject or flag connections from addresses with poor IP reputation scores, and inbound filtering services can automatically quarantine suspicious messages. Monitoring abuse feeds and maintaining responsive blocklisting procedures using tools such as fail2ban ensures rapid containment when anomalous activity is detected.