Critical Alert
IP 196.251.84.113 is a critical-risk address operating from the Netherlands under ASN AS401120 (CHEAPY-HOST), with a threat level of 10 out of 10 and an alarming 7,230 total abuse reports filed against it through automated honeypot sensors. The dominant threat profile is general hacking activity, including intrusion attempts and unauthorized access attempts, supplemented by evidence that the host itself may be compromised and exploited as an attack platform. Despite the extremely high report volume, the activity frequency metric registers at zero, suggesting the bulk of this IP's malicious history occurred within a concentrated timeframe during August 2025. With a 59 percent confidence score derived from 20 separate honeypot detection sources, this address presents a severe and credible danger to any exposed network service.
The geographic assignment to the Netherlands and the CHEAPY-HOST network operator is contextually significant, as budget hosting infrastructure in Western Europe frequently serves as a launchpad for automated attack campaigns due to permissive acceptable-use policies and rapid provisioning. The coexistence of both "Hacking" classifications and "Exploited Host" designations indicates a dual threat scenario: this IP is actively conducting intrusion operations against target systems while simultaneously exhibiting indicators of compromise itself, meaning the operator may be unaware their infrastructure is weaponized. The detection data confirms attack connections and malware or exploit activity patterns consistent with mass-scale scanning and exploitation toolkit deployment commonly associated with botnet recruitment or credential stuffing campaigns.
For organizations with internet-facing services, this IP warrants immediate blocking at the network perimeter firewall or intrusion prevention system. Implementing fail2ban, CrowdSec, or similar dynamic blocklist tools that automatically ingest abuse feeds can provide proactive protection against known threat actors like this one. All exposed services should enforce strong authentication, enforce principle-of-least-privilege access controls, and maintain current patch management cycles to reduce vulnerability to the exploitation attempts originating from compromised attack infrastructure. Operators of Netherlands-based hosting environments encountering this address should review their abuse-handling procedures and consider notifying CHEAPY-HOST to investigate potential compromise of their customer endpoints contributing to the wider threat landscape.