Proxies are used by many people for various reasons including protecting their privacy, bypassing anti-bot protections on websites and for e-commerce fraud prevention. Identifying proxies can be difficult because proxy users often spoof their location. A proxy detection API can instantly provide data on the nature of a connection, by scrutinizing certain attributes of the incoming request. This information can be used to identify whether a user is attempting to circumvent security measures and is most likely to be a fraudster or cybercriminal.
The IP2Proxy(tm) proxy detection API Web Service is a hosted API tool that allows instant detection of anonymous proxy, VPN, TOR exit nodes and residential proxies by IP address. It is a REST API supporting both JSON and XML responses. The system utilizes a database of known proxy, VPN and TOR servers that are updated on a daily basis. There is a free tier that supports up to 1000 requests per day and a paid version that can be purchased for a yearly fee.
Enhancing Security with Proxy Detection APIs: Leveraging Real-Time Insights
There are a number of free tools that can detect if an IP is using a proxy or not but they may fail to catch high-quality proxies that have been optimized for geo-latency and specialized to avoid being detected. In addition, these tools typically rely on ping tests which can be misleading as a proxy is likely to send back different ping results depending on the location of the underlying proxy server and network conditions. This is why most businesses will rely on more comprehensive risk scoring and identity verification methods rather than just proxy detection alone.