As a business owner, it’s important to understand how online users connect. Fraudsters often spoof their connection details with proxies, which are services that encrypt data and mask the user’s IP address and location. Proxies are popular among bots, scrapers and other types of malicious software, and they can wreak havoc on websites. Implementing a proxy detection checker is key to catching harmful agents and protecting your customers, businesses and reputation.

An IP address proxy detection checker is a tool that allows you to look up an IP address and identify if it’s been used as a proxy or VPN connection. A wide range of proxies exist, from residential and public proxies to data centers and CDN proxies. Many of them are resold by criminals, who use them to conceal their identities while committing credit card fraud or other crimes.

Techniques to Detect Account Opening Fraud

Detecting a proxy connection requires traffic analysis, which involves looking at network characteristics and comparing them to typical expectations. For example, a proxy server typically has open ports, and if an IP address shows up with multiple open ports it’s likely to be a proxy. Geolocation checks also play an important role, as they compare a user’s claimed location with the actual physical location associated with their IP.

A number of different tools are available for proxy detection, but they work best when combined with other risk assessment methodologies. For instance, using a webRTC test and latency tests can reveal when a user is using a tunneling protocol to connect.