The option to ban IP addresses in ZenDesk Support (not Chat)
Hi, I came to a situation where an end-user is "stalking" one of my agents (there is a long story here, won't share details). He changes his email address all of the time so blacklisting his email is not a thing. I tracked his IP and it is always the same, so decided to ban it.
However, this seems to be an option only in ZenDesk Chat, not Support - why? Any workarounds? Any plans to have that in Support too?
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Hi @...,
Try looking at this link: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203663706-Restricting-access-to-Zendesk-Support-and-your-Help-Center-using-IP-restrictions
Let us know if this solves your issue.
Thanks
Team Diziana
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Yes, this article was already suggested but it is about allowing certain IP addresses, not banning them. If I have to allow IP addresses, then I need to create lists of dozens of addresses which is very time-consuming. On top of that, there will always be a chance to not allow a range which has to be allowed and potentially to restrict users from getting in touch with support.
As said - restricting IP addresses is an option in Chat - why it is not an option in Support?
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@...
Is the option below enabled:
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No, this option is not enabled and I don't find it helpful to enable it, then whitelist all clients' IP addresses just to exclude one. It is much easier just to ban one. "Stalking" - I used the word just because I don't want to dive in explanations what is happening so don't focus on it.
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If the language they use is pretty consistent perhaps you can set up triggers to filter those tickets.
But yes, I also wish we could ban IP addresses from support, not just chat. Having to see the ticket, then un-suspend the banned account then merge the accounts together then re-suspend is a big waste of time. -
Is there any update on this potentially becoming a feature? Have a customer that has submitted over 250 tickets in the past 24 hours from multiple different email addresses and would love to be able to ban their IP address or stop them in some way. Have done all the suggestions with some success each time, but they keep coming back with slightly different wording and a new email
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We would also love the ability to blacklist IP Addresses. Is this something that is on the Zendesk team's radar?
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+1 for this becoming a feature! This seems like a core security functionality that is missing.
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Would love to see this as a feature as well.
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For months now we've had a particular customer send emails on a near-daily basis, requesting that we re-add content to our mobile game application that had been recently featured (we rotate content monthly) that they'd just missed. We've responded multiple times with estimates of when the content could be available again or hints of what might be coming next to the point of exhaustion but it seems the customer isn't reading our responses at all. Eventually, we marked the original email address as spam which lead them to send tickets from multiple new email addresses with different aliases. Would love to see a feature put in place by Zendesk so we could block the IP address.
~Now they've resorted to sending written letters to our office with the same requests that have already been answered in emails. (facepalm)
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+1 to blocking IP addresses in Support - the functionality is available in chat, so it'd be great to see this more widely available.
Restricting the help center to certain IPs or requiring login is not an option for all Zendesk customers, and we don't have a way of handling problematic repeat end-users who make repeat emails to circumvent email blocks.
Ideal solutions would be to block IPs, and/or have the ability to route via IP in triggers so tickets from that IP can be set to be solved or routed to be reviewed by a senior team.
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+1 for the ability to ban specific IP addresses. This should be an account security feature.
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Would be very beneficial to our team as well!
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I think it's needed as well. We need to be able to ban a single IP address easily.
Especially as any workaround doesn't help not to increase the ticket numbers uselessly.
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+1 this is a needed security feature. We have customers from all around the world and they are often contacting us from multiple devices so it's impossible to maintain an allowed list of IPs. We need the ability to only block certain IP's whenever we notice spam tickets being created.
Our current workaround is to use a trigger to assign the tickets to a manager who then bulk edits the tickets to spam. This is not a useful workaround as too much manual time is involved when there should be a simple IP Block in place.
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+1 to adding this as a security feature.
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+1 would love to see this as a feature in the future - we receive tens of thousands of tickets a month, whitelisting IPs is not an option, and there is no other way than blocking IP to prevent abusive behavior for some users.
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+1 to this. We need to ban specific IP addresses from creating tickets or connecting via Widget when bad actors come into our Messaging and hurl vitriolic abuse at our agents.
Whitelisting massive swaths of IPs just to get rid of 1 or 2 nasty little trolls is not a solution, it's yet another problem.
Imagine coming to work every day and being called horrible names by some immature memelord, then having your admin say, "sorry, we can't blocklist that abuser." It's unacceptable.
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We are being spammed by someone that keeps changing email address but uses the same IP address so I would really like to block that IP address. They are using the offline contact form on our chat widget
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We have the same problem and also need to ban only one specific IP address.
I think Zendesk should be able to implement something easily.
Would be great if Zendesk would stop to ignore their customers valid requests. -
This is a safety and security issue for your clients and their frontline teams. It's disappointing this has yet to be prioritized.
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Hey folks, I'm Caroline - one of the PMs at Zendesk working in the Trust and Safety group 👋
Thanks for raising this topic and for all the feedback that you've left. I agree that there's probably two things we need to address here; suspending a user also applies to the IP address of that user, and extending the current IP restrictions in Admin Center to also work as a blocklist as well as an allowlist (which it is currently).
I'm kicking off some internal conversations based on this post and your feedback and will be back here once I have some ideas and problems to validate with you. Appreciate your partnership and patience.
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Thanks Caroline. We need this too! Being spammed by a single IP address - hundreds of tickets, different (fake) users, different text so we can't easily set triggers...but the same IP. We need to be able to have a block list for IPs. Thanks
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Please allow feature so we can ban/block a single IP address from submitting tickets. This is much needed!
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+1 please add this feature soon and also improve your Captcha. We get 20-30 spam tickets per day (via ticket form), often from the same IP address. No, we are not going to force our customers to sign-in to use our Support system. Thank you.
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Any updates Caroline Kello??? We are all very eager to hear an update from you on this. Its been months now. PLEASE
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Thanks for the ping, Nick. We've set up a recurring sync to discuss how suspending an IP address would work across the different product areas and channels, and how we'd build it. I don't have enough to share back right now but I'll post here once I do.
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Thanks Caroline Kello! It has been months since the last time you mentioned having internal discussions about this. Meanwhile, the continued daily spam continues. I cant even create a trigger to help with this like your CS agents suggested. We need the ability to block IP addresses. Or even set up a trigger to mark tickets as spam and delete. Please get us a way to resolve the spam ASAP!!! Too many users have been reaching out to zendesk asking for this. We need it now! Cant wait another 3 months or longer.
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As mentioned in August, there are two things that we want to address from everyone's comments: suspending a user also applies to the IP address of that user, and extending the current IP restrictions in Admin Center to also work as a blocklist as well as an allowlist. We are currently in internal meetings about how we will resolve this in 2024. While a priority for us to look in to next year, I can't promise any dates and deadlines as of today. But please know this remains on our minds and has not fallen off of our planned roadmap. Thanks
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