Severe Risk
IP 176.65.149.55 is a critical-risk address operated by Pfcloud UG in the Netherlands that has generated 5,066 abuse reports over approximately one year, predominantly for sustained hacking activity targeting exposed services.
The volume and consistency of reports filed against this address reflect a persistent threat actor operating through automated honeypot sensors across the security community. With a confidence score of 85% and an activity frequency rated 8 out of 10, this IP demonstrated continuous malicious behavior from its first recorded report in August 2025 through July 2026. The address routes through ASN AS51396 under the Pfcloud UG network, a Dutch hosting provider, and the most recent threat category attribution identifies hacking attempts as the dominant activity pattern. Detection systems flagging this address captured evidence of unauthorized connection attempts and suspicious SSH sessions on non-standard ports, indicating efforts to obscure authentication traffic from standard monitoring tools.
Hacking activity as logged against this IP involves intrusion attempts, vulnerability exploitation, and unauthorized access campaigns targeting services left exposed to the internet. The detection of SSH sessions on unusual ports is particularly significant because legitimate administrators rarely deviate from standard service ports; attackers frequently route traffic through non-standard ports to bypass firewall rules, evade intrusion detection signatures, and blend malicious sessions with normal network noise. A host receiving direct connection attempts from an address with this reputation faces elevated risk of credential compromise, brute-force account takeover, or exploitation of unpatched service vulnerabilities if the connection attempt succeeds.
Site operators should immediately block 176.65.149.55 at the network perimeter and implement automated dynamic blocking via tools such as fail2ban or equivalent intrusion-prevention systems configured to respond to repeated authentication failures. Enforcing key-based authentication for any exposed SSH services, disabling root login, and relocating services to non-standard ports where feasible will reduce the effectiveness of the techniques observed from this source. Rate-limiting incoming connections and monitoring logs for authentication anomalies from this address range will provide additional defensive depth against the ongoing threat it represents.