Anonymized infrastructure complicates IP intelligence for security teams

Security teams are overwhelmed with IP data but struggle to identify threats due to anonymizing infrastructure like VPNs and residential proxies. A recent study by Spur Intelligence found that these anonymizing tools are present in nearly every security incident, yet many organizations lack the visibility and context to act effectively on this data, as reported by The Hacker News.

Cybercriminals increasingly use VPNs and residential proxy networks to mask malicious activity, making traditional IP reputation and blocklist approaches less effective. The Spur Intelligence study revealed that nearly half of companies experience significant impacts from account takeovers and credential abuse facilitated by these anonymizing tools. A major challenge is the lack of context surrounding IP activity, with almost half of security practitioners citing it as their biggest hurdle. Beyond basic geolocation, security teams need infrastructure classification, VPN/proxy attribution, and behavioral indicators to understand the intent behind connections.

Many organizations still use IP intelligence reactively, primarily for post-alert investigations, rather than integrating it into real-time decision-making for adaptive authentication or fraud prevention. Furthermore, the internal use of personal VPNs and proxy services by employees creates blind spots, with 61% of respondents showing low concern about this exposure. Measuring the effectiveness of IP intelligence is also a challenge, with a third of companies not measuring it at all, though a shift towards outcome-based metrics like reduced investigation time is emerging.

Source: The Hacker News