Threatfox

ThreatFox (abuse.ch) MCP — community IOC feed.

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1684+ live data sources.

Tools

• search_ioc(indicator, exact_match?)
• recent_iocs(days?)
• search_hash(hash) — see below, it asks TWO upstream queries
• search_malware(malware, limit?)

search_hash asks both hash relations

ThreatFox stores hashes in two unrelated places and abuse.ch's own query: "search_hash" only searches one of them:

relation	what it means	upstream query
sample_to_c2	the hash is a malware SAMPLE; rows are the C&C servers it talks to	search_hash
hash_listed_as_ioc	the hash is itself published as an indicator (threat_type: "payload")	search_ioc

Asking only the first made this tool 34-for-34 empty over the 30d to 2026-09-16. It was never a broken endpoint — abuse.ch answers illegl_hash (their typo) for a malformed hash and no_result for a well-formed one, so our request was parsed and accepted throughout. It was the wrong question: da168c3ff95c749beec0a2f29a1e6b82, taken from this pack's own recent_iocs, returns nothing from search_hash and a full row from search_ioc.

The tool now tries both and returns matched_relation saying which answered (null when neither did, alongside searched_relations). The second call only runs when the first found nothing, so a non-empty answer still costs one request. Do not collapse the two into one unlabelled list: "this file phones home to that C2" and "this file is itself flagged as a payload" are different security facts.

Empty is a real answer here. ThreatFox tracks C&C infrastructure, not samples — most hashes are in neither relation. Measured 2026-09-16: 7 of 40 recent MalwareBazaar sample hashes and 2 of 88 of ThreatFox's own hash IOCs resolved. For sample metadata use the malwarebazaar pack (same vendor, same key), which indexes every sample.

Committed examples go stale by design. abuse.ch expires every IOC older than six months ("IOCs older than 6 months are no longer exposed on the ThreatFox API and ThreatFox Export"), which is why abuse.ch's OWN documentation example hash 2151c4b970eff0071948dbbc19066aa4 returns no_result today — it points at IOC id 4726, from 2021. Re-verify the examples in workers/gateway/src/tool-examples.json when they age out; never commit a placeholder like d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (the MD5 of the empty string), which is what taught every caller the wrong shape.

Auth

• Platform key: gateway env PLATFORM_ABUSECH_KEY (shared with malwarebazaar).
• BYO: ?_apiKey=<key> after registering at https://auth.abuse.ch.

Data source

https://threatfox-api.abuse.ch/api/v1/ — header Auth-Key, POST with JSON body.

Quick Start

Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "threatfox": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/threatfox/mcp"
    }
  }
}

What this endpoint actually serves

tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/threatfox/mcp returns the tools in the table above plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools — ask_pipeworx, discover_tools, search_within, remember/recall and the rest of the gateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a single-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the pack's own. The connection's initialize response states its exact scope, and is the authoritative answer for a given day.

This is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a scoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via ask_pipeworx, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a second MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without them; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth, connect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.

Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed directly, instead of just this one's:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pipeworx": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1684+ data sources. The only difference is which pack's tools are listed directly; ask_pipeworx reaches all of them from either one.

No MCP client? Call it over HTTP

curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_ioc \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"indicator":"105.72.55.52:8080"}'

No account needed for the first calls. Inspect any tool: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_ioc. Find one: POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_packs with {"query":"..."}.

Standalone (no gateway account)

This package also runs as a local stdio MCP server — no Pipeworx account, no gateway round-trip:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "threatfox": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-threatfox"]
    }
  }
}

Or run it directly to confirm it starts:

npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-threatfox

It speaks MCP over stdin/stdout and answers initialize/tools/list/tools/call for only this pack's tools — none of the shared meta-tools the gateway connection above adds. Same source, same tools, no ask_pipeworx routing.

Using with ask_pipeworx

Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English — this works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:

ask_pipeworx({ question: "your question about Threatfox data" })

The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.

More

• Docs and guides
• pipeworx.io

License

MIT