> **⚠️ Warning** > To learn more about the risk associated with a particular IP address, use the [minFraud Score service](/minfraud/evaluate-a-transaction/). This service provides the IP Risk Score, a replacement for the proxyScore. To identify anonymous IP addresses in support of geotargeting and ad serving environments, we recommend using the [GeoIP Anonymous IP database](https://www.maxmind.com/en/geoip-anonymous-ip-database). The proxy detection web service provides a score measuring the risk associated with an IP address. It is called the IP risk score in our current minFraud services. [Learn more about the IP risk score on our knowledge base.](https://support.maxmind.com/knowledge-base/articles/minfraud-ip-risk-score) ## Release Notes Changes to the proxy detection web service are documented in our [release notes](/minfraud/release-notes). ## Device Tracking Add-On You may optionally include the [Device Tracking Add-On](/minfraud/track-devices) to help us identify the device your customer is using to determine whether it has been used in previous fraudulent transactions. The device information passed to MaxMind via the Device Tracking Add-On is factored into the proxyScore returned when you query the HTTP API. ## HTTP-based API This web service uses the same hostnames as our [minFraud](/minfraud) web service. Its URI is `https://minfraud.maxmind.com/app/ipauth_http` The `minfraud.maxmind.com` hostname automatically picks the data center geographically closest to you. ## Security The API is only available via HTTPS. If you attempt to access this service via HTTP, you will receive a `403 Forbidden` HTTP response. We require TLS 1.2 or greater for all requests to our servers to keep your data secure. ## HTTP status codes In addition to the error code returned in the `err` field of the response body, this service uses the HTTP status code to indicate certain error conditions. This lets you act on these conditions from the HTTP status code, for example in your monitoring or an internal proxy, without parsing the response body. | HTTP status | Condition | | ---------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | `200 OK` | The request was processed. | | `400 Bad Request` | The request was malformed. | | `401 Unauthorized` | The license key is missing or invalid (`LICENSE_REQUIRED` or `INVALID_LICENSE_KEY`). | | `402 Payment Required` | Your account is out of queries (`MAX_REQUESTS_REACHED`). | | `403 Forbidden` | Your account does not have permission to use this service (`PERMISSION_REQUIRED`). | | `5xx` | A server error occurred. | Where applicable, the response body returns an `err` value with the relevant error code. ## Input The API requires you to pass a set of parameters as an HTTP GET or POST. Results are returned in a simple text format documented below. The three parameters that this service takes are the IP address to look up, the shopID and [your MaxMind license key](https://www.maxmind.com/en/accounts/current/license-key). The shopID is your internal ID for the shop, affiliate, or merchant this order is coming from, and is required for customers who are resellers, payment providers, gateways and affiliate networks. The parameters should be passed in a query string or as a form post (application/x-www-form-urlencoded). The IP address parameter should be named `i` (lower case "I"), the shopID parameter should be named `shopID` and the license key should be named `l` (lower case "L"). The IP address should be passed as a string like "44.55.66.77". ## Output This service returns data as a set of comma-separated fields. The individual fields are not escaped or quoted, but they will never contain a comma. All strings are returned as ASCII.
Name Type (length) Description
proxyScore decimal A score from 0.00-4.00 indicating the likelihood that the user's IP address is an anonymous proxy, open proxy, or VPN.
proxyScore Likelihood of fraud
0.5 15%
1.0 30%
2.0 60%
3.0+ 90%
A proxyScore of 0.00 will be returned for a corporate proxy or private IP and an empty string will be returned for an invalid IP.
err enum

If there was an error or warning with this request, this field contains an error code string.

The possible error codes are:

  • PERMISSION_REQUIRED – You do not have permission to use the service. Please contact our support team for more information.
  • LICENSE_REQUIRED – You must provide a license key.
  • INVALID_LICENSE_KEY – The license key provided is invalid.
  • MAX_REQUESTS_REACHED – This error will be returned if your account is out of queries.
## Client Code Examples Below are some sample clients for this web service. ```perl #!/usr/bin/env perl use strict; use warnings; use Encode qw( decode ); use Getopt::Long; use LWP::UserAgent; use URI; use URI::QueryParam; my $license_key = 'YOUR_LICENSE_KEY'; my $ip_address = '24.24.24.24'; GetOptions( 'license:s' => \$license_key, 'ip:s' => \$ip_address, ); my $uri = URI->new('https://minfraud.maxmind.com/app/ipauth_http'); $uri->query_param( l => $license_key ); $uri->query_param( i => $ip_address ); my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new( timeout => 5 ); my $response = $ua->get($uri); die 'Request failed with status ' . $response->code() unless $response->is_success(); my %proxy = map { split /=/, $_ } split /;/, $response->content(); if ( defined $proxy{err} && length $proxy{err} ) { die "MaxMind returned an error code for the request: $proxy{err}\n"; } else { print "\nMaxMind Proxy data for $ip_address\n\n"; for my $field ( sort keys %proxy ) { print sprintf( " %-20s %s\n", $field, $proxy{$field} ); } print "\n"; } ``` ```python #!/usr/bin/env python3 import argparse import requests import sys parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='MaxMind Proxy Detection web service client') parser.add_argument('--license', default='YOUR_LICENSE_KEY') parser.add_argument('--ip', default='24.24.24.24') args = parser.parse_args() payload = {'l': args.license, 'i': args.ip}; response = requests.get('https://minfraud.maxmind.com/app/ipauth_http', params=payload) if response.status_code != requests.codes.ok: sys.stderr.write("Request failed with status %s\n" % response.status_code) sys.exit(1) proxy = dict( f.split('=') for f in response.text.split(';') ) if 'err' in proxy and len(proxy['err']): sys.stderr.write("MaxMind returned an error code for the request: %s\n" % proxy['err']) sys.exit(1) else: print("\nMaxMind Proxy data for %s\n" % args.ip) for (key, val) in proxy.items(): print(" %-20s %s" % (key, val)) print("") ``` ```php #!/usr/bin/php