Hosting Detection: Why BotBlocker Identifies Hosting Providers and What It Means for Security

Modern web security isn’t just about blocking obvious spam and attacks. Many threats today come from servers and automated tools hosted on commercial hosting providers, cloud services, or data centers – rather than from ordinary end-user devices. BotBlocker includes a system for detecting when visitors are coming from known hosting providers, and this data is a powerful tool for improving security.

What Does “Hosting Detection” Mean?

Hosting detection means analyzing the IP address of each visitor and checking whether it belongs to a range used by a data center, cloud service (like AWS, DigitalOcean, Hetzner), or a web hosting provider. This is different from traffic coming from residential ISPs, mobile networks, or corporate VPNs.

BotBlocker uses up-to-date lists of hosting ASNs (Autonomous System Numbers) and IP ranges to quickly identify traffic that originates from such infrastructure.

Why Is This Useful for Security?

• Many bots and attacks are launched from cloud hosting, not real home users.
  Attackers use rented servers to automate scanning, brute-force attacks, scraping, and DDoS because they have high bandwidth and can quickly rotate IP addresses.
• Real visitors almost never access your site from commercial hosting IPs.
  Normal users browse from home, office, or mobile networks – not from AWS, Google Cloud, or cheap VPS hosting.
• Knowing the source helps you build smarter security policies.
  For example, you can apply stricter checks, rate limits, or even block suspicious actions from known hosting ranges, while not bothering legitimate users.

How BotBlocker Uses Hosting Detection

• Flagging or blocking suspicious requests.
  If a visitor comes from a hosting provider and also shows other bot-like signals (such as missing User-Agent or JavaScript), BotBlocker can challenge or block them.
• Adaptive filtering.
  You can choose to allow, monitor, or restrict actions for hosting traffic – useful for reducing false positives.
• Improved analytics.
  BotBlocker’s logs help you see the real sources of your traffic, identify attack waves, and track how threats change over time.

When Is Hosting Detection Especially Valuable?

• For login, registration, or sensitive actions – you can require extra verification for visitors from hosting IPs.
• For reducing server load – block or slow down scrapers and bots that come in mass from hosting providers.
• For advanced projects – use this data to build custom rules and defenses for your site.

FAQ

Can real users come from hosting providers?
Rarely. In 99% of cases, it’s bots, automated scripts, or developers/testers. Exceptions are possible (for example, someone using a cloud-based VPN), but they are very rare for most sites.

Does BotBlocker automatically block all hosting traffic?
No, it detects and flags it. Blocking or additional filtering is up to your settings and combination with other signals.

Does this slow down my site?
No, detection is fast and optimized for high-traffic environments.

What is ASN