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You can build a Slack bot that investigates an IP address pasted into a message by subscribing to Slack message events, validating the address, querying an IP intelligence API, and posting a concise result back to the conversation. The bot investigates only IP literals in message text; Slack does not automatically reveal the network address of the person who posted.
How the message-to-investigation flow works
- Receive a message event. Configure a Slack app to subscribe to the relevant message event for the channels or direct messages where the bot should work. Slack can deliver Events API requests to a public HTTP request URL or through Socket Mode. The app’s event subscriptions, OAuth scopes, and conversation membership determine what it can see. See Slack’s Events API documentation.
- Acknowledge and validate. Acknowledge the event promptly, then inspect message text for valid IPv4 or IPv6 literals. Ignore bot-generated messages and prevent the bot from responding to its own output.
- Query an intelligence provider. Send the extracted address to a provider’s API, subject to that provider’s terms, authentication, and rate limits. Decide whether the workflow should retrieve existing data or request a new check or rescan.
- Post the result. Use Slack’s Web API to reply in the originating conversation with the address, provider, notable findings, lookup time, and a provider report link when available. Slack’s Web API lets apps query and enact changes in a workspace; its Events API guide demonstrates
chat.postMessagefor a bot reply.
Choose how Slack delivers events
The Events API supports a public HTTP request URL and Socket Mode. Choose the delivery method that fits your deployment and network design, then subscribe only to the message events and conversations the bot needs. A subscription alone does not grant visibility into every workspace conversation: scopes and the bot’s membership still constrain what it can receive.
Extract addresses without turning every message into a lookup
Validate the candidate
Find candidate IPv4 or IPv6 strings in message text and parse each candidate with an IP-address library rather than relying on a loose regular expression as the final check. Reject malformed values before calling the provider. Consider how punctuation around an address should be handled so that a trailing comma or parenthesis is not included in the query.
Control repeat work
- Ignore events authored by bots, including the app itself, to prevent response loops.
- Apply sensible per-user, per-channel, or workspace rate limits to control provider usage and avoid flooding conversations.
- Handle Slack’s duplicate event deliveries idempotently. Record processed event identifiers or use another durable deduplication mechanism so a retry does not create multiple lookups or replies.
- For messages containing multiple addresses, decide whether to investigate each address or ask the user to submit them separately; communicate that behavior in the bot’s response.
Select an IP intelligence API
Two documented candidates illustrate different lookup considerations. They are not established here as equivalent in coverage, price, or accuracy; choose based on your organization’s requirements and verify current API documentation before implementation.
#1 Best Overall
| Provider | Documented operation | Implementation consideration |
|---|---|---|
| VirusTotal | GET an existing IP report; a separate POST endpoint requests a rescan. | VirusTotal says queried indicators are scanned and added to its community-accessible dataset. Review the privacy implications before sending an address. |
| AbuseIPDB | Provides an IP checking API. | Its documentation says an account is required and APIv1 is deprecated in favor of APIv2. Confirm the current version and requirements. |
References: VirusTotal IP report, VirusTotal rescan endpoint, and AbuseIPDB API.
Decide what the bot should tell the user
Before choosing an endpoint, decide what counts as a useful result: an existing report, a provider check, or a fresh rescan. Responses may expose different evidence and timestamps, so the bot should make the source and age of findings clear when available. Do not describe a missing report as “clean,” and do not treat reputation data as proof that an address is malicious or benign.
Rank #2
Compare authentication requirements, rate limits, account requirements, API version, data exposed, and the provider’s handling of queried indicators. The available documentation does not establish a winner for data coverage, cost, or accuracy, so those should not be claimed without current comparative evidence.
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Protect the workspace, credentials, and indicators
- Verify inbound requests. Slack documents how to verify that incoming requests genuinely originate from Slack. Follow its security guidance before processing event payloads.
- Limit credentials and scopes. Store Slack and provider credentials in a secret store, grant only the OAuth scopes the app needs, and avoid logging tokens or full message bodies unnecessarily.
- Consider indicator privacy before lookup. VirusTotal’s IP report API documentation warns: “Do not submit or query indicators containing sensitive, confidential, or personally identifiable information (PII).” Its documentation says queried indicators are added to a dataset accessible to the community. Do not send private or sensitive indicators there unless that disclosure is acceptable to your organization.
- Understand the IP allowlist boundary. Slack offers an IP allowlist for OAuth token use against Web API and SCIM methods; its documentation says the allowlist does not apply to incoming webhooks.
Keep Slack token alerts separate from pasted-IP lookups
Slack’s Audit Logs documentation describes IP anomaly signals such as a new ASN, a cloud ASN, or inclusion in an IOC list. Those signals concern anomalous IP use associated with Slack user or app tokens. They are a separate security context from a bot looking up an arbitrary IP address pasted into a message. See Slack’s anomalous events reference.
Quick Recap
Best Value
Rank #4
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