Smart Signals Overview

Setup and Usage

Typical integration into a project consists of those steps:

• Add the JavaScript agent on the frontend part of your web application. The smart signals are collected during the load() function. If you are an existing customer and already deployed Fingerprint, you can skip this step.
• Get the requestId from the JavaScript agent response and pass it to your server.
• Call GET /events endpoint from your server-side environment to retrieve the Smart Signals in the API response.
• Use the information about fraud in your business logic.

📘

Availability

Because Smart Signals are focused on fraud detection, we only make them available through our Server API, Webhooks, and Sealed Client Results so we can ensure you receive those results unaltered.

Smart Signals are available in our Pro Plus and Enterprise plans. If you are an Enterprise plan customer interested in one or more of these signals, please contact our support team to enable them for you. Signing up for an Enterprise plan does not automatically enable these signals.

Suspect Score

Suspect Score combines all Smart Signals into a weighted integer value based on their global probability. You can read more about the weights and the mechanisms behind Suspect Score in a dedicated section.

"suspectScore": {
  "data": {
    "result": 0
  }
}

Velocity Signals

Velocity Signals sum key data points for a specific visitorID at three distinct intervals: 5 minutes, 1 hour, and 24 hours as follows:

• Number of unique IP addresses linked to the visitorID
• Number of unique countries associated with a visitorID
• Number of unique linkedIDs associated with the visitorID
• Number of events attributed to the visitorID

For high-activity visitors exceeding a count of 20,000 within a 24-hour window, we will omit the aggregation of 24-hour results for unique IP addresses, countries, and LinkedIDs.

{
  "velocity": {
    "data": {
      "distinctIp": {
        "intervals": {
          "5m": 1,
          "1h": 1,
          "24h": 5
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

{
  "velocity": {
    "data": {
      "distinctCountry": {
        "intervals": {
          "5m":1,
          "1h": 1 // For visitors exceeding 20,000 in 24 hours, we omit 24-hour aggregations
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

{
  "velocity": {
    "data": {
      "distinctLinkedId": {} // This will be an empty object in case there is no data to present 
        }
      }
    }

{
  "velocity": {
    "data": {
      "events": {
        "intervals": {
          "5m": 3,
          "1h": 5,
          "24h": 23
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Browser Smart Signals

Each individual Smart Signal contributes with a unique piece of information about the device. Most of our Smart Signals are independent from the source of the request (browser vs. native mobile application) but there are some signals that are not available if the data was collected through our official mobile SDKs.

See the tags under each title or our Smart Signals Cheat Sheet to determine whether you should expect to see the Smart Signal output in Server API and Webhooks based on its source.

Browser Bot Detection

Get information about good and bad bots, allowing you to block or filter them from your regular traffic and stop automated abuse attempts.

The bot.result field contains one of notDetected, bad or good values where

• notDetected means that we haven't detected a bot and the payload should belong to a regular visitor
• good indicates that the bot is a well-known web crawler or other search engine bot
• bad is an automated tool that doesn't have legitimate uses and assumes fraudulent activity

"botd": {
  "data": {
    "bot": {
      "result": "bad",
      "type": "headless"
    },
    "url": "https://example.com/",
    "ip": "193.165.141.254",
    "time": "2024-04-12T09:29:59.588Z",
    "userAgent": "Headless",
    "requestId": "1712914199539.K1EXmu"
  }
}

"botd": {
  "data": {
    "bot": {
      "result": "notDetected"
    },
    "url": "https://example.com/",
    "ip": "94.142.239.124",
    "time": "2023-08-29T21:48:17.351Z",
    "userAgent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/116.0.0.0 Safari/537.36",
    "requestId": "1693345697334.YKOdT5"
  }
}

Browser Incognito Detection

Incognito flag detects whether incognito or private modes are being used by the visitor to access the customer's website.

Most browsers have an option called Incognito mode (Chrome) or Private mode (Safari, Firefox) that disables some functionality and makes the general browser storage more ephemeral. Normal browser tabs save additional information like cookies and local storage content in a way that ensures that the information is available to website even after the browser window is closed and re-opened. Incognito mode makes sure that there are no such traces once a window gets closed.

Since the most basic fingerprinting technique could be storing a cookie in the visitor's browser, the incognito mode can be used to circumvent this simple mechanism, making sure that the returning visitor is not correctly re-identified through cookies and other information stored in the browser. This might be interpreted in an attempt to pose as a completely new identity. It might also be considered to be the most basic mechanism of browser tampering.

The flag is an interesting data point in fraud scenarios, especially in use cases where applying promotional coupons, redeeming bonuses or voting should be limited to once per user.

"incognito": {
  "data": {
    "result": true
  }
}

"incognito": {
  "data": {
    "result": false
  }
}

These browsers are supported:

• Safari (macOS / iOS)
• Chrome (Windows / macOS / iOS / Android / Linux)
• Samsung Browser (Android)
• Firefox (Windows / macOS / iOS / Android / Linux)
• Edge (Windows / macOS / iOS / Android)
• Brave (Windows / macOS / iOS / Android / Linux)

🚧

HTML iframes limitation

Incognito detection can give a false result when JS agent runs in an iframe. Make sure JS agent runs outside iframes to get the accurate result.

IP Geolocation

Provides information about the physical location of the originating IP address.

We deploy several mechanisms to detect the IP address of the original client which allows us to correctly determine visitor location, even when using anonymizing tools. The geolocation field shows the estimated physical location of the client.

The asn and datacenter field can be used to group ranges of IP addresses that belong to the same owner to apply protection rules against a whole block of IP addresses. They could also indicate that the visitor connects through an intermediate server instead of connecting through an ISP directly.

"ipInfo": {
  "data": {
    "v4": {
      "address": "94.142.239.124",
      "geolocation": {
        "accuracyRadius": 20,
        "latitude": 50.05,
        "longitude": 14.4,
        "postalCode": "150 00",
        "timezone": "Europe/Prague",
        "city": {
          "name": "Prague"
        },
        "country": {
          "code": "CZ",
          "name": "Czechia"
        },
        "continent": {
          "code": "EU",
          "name": "Europe"
        },
        "subdivisions": [
          {
            "isoCode": "10",
            "name": "Prague"
          }
        ]
      },
      "asn": {
        "asn": "7922",
        "name": "COMCAST-7922",
        "network": "73.136.0.0/13"
      },
      "datacenter": {
        "result": true,
        "name": "DediPath"
      }
    },
    "v6": {
      "address": "::ffff:5e8e:ef7c",
      "geolocation": {
        "accuracyRadius": 20,
        "latitude": 50.05,
        "longitude": 14.4,
        "postalCode": "150 00",
        "timezone": "Europe/Prague",
        "city": {
          "name": "Prague"
        },
        "country": {
          "code": "CZ",
          "name": "Czechia"
        },
        "continent": {
          "code": "EU",
          "name": "Europe"
        },
        "subdivisions": [
          {
            "isoCode": "10",
            "name": "Prague"
          }
        ]
      },
      "asn": {
        "asn": "7922",
        "name": "COMCAST-7922",
        "network": "::ffff:5e8e:ef7c/110"
      },
      "datacenter": {
        "result": true,
        "name": "DediPath"
      }
    }
  }
}

VPN Detection for browsers

Fingerprint's VPN detection is capable of detecting whether the user is in a different timezone compared to their originating IP address (timezoneMismatch field). It can also provide information about whether an IP address has been known to belong to one of the public VPN providers through the publicVPN field. On top of that, we detect whether the OS of the client matches the OS of the network traffic we see, represented in the osMismatch flag.

If either of those detection methods return positive results, we return the final result as true.

"vpn": {
  "data": {
    "result": true,
    "originTimezone": "Europe/Prague",
    "originCountry": "unknown" // Not yet supported for browsers
    "methods": {
      "timezoneMismatch": true,
      "publicVPN": true,
      "auxiliaryMobile": false, // Irrelevant for browsers, mobile SDKs only
      "osMismatch": true
    }
  }
}

"vpn": {
  "data": {
    "result": false,
    "originTimezone": "Europe/Prague",
    "originCountry": "unknown" // Not yet supported for browsers
    "methods": {
      "timezoneMismatch": false,
      "publicVPN": false,
      "auxiliaryMobile": false, // Irrelevant for browsers, mobile SDKs only
      "osMismatch": false
    }
  }
}

result

• true if we detect a VPN through timezoneMismatch, publicVPN, or osMismatch methods. The field can be used as a standalone flag for VPN detection. Alternatively, fields in the methods section (documented below) can be used in specific use-cases to improve the granularity of the detection
• false if none of the methods below returned a positive result

originTimezone

This field exposes the IANA timezone that is available through the system settings. Since the presence of VPN does not affect the value of this field, it can be used as a true timezone of origin (physical location) of the user.

• Example: originTimezone: "Europe/Prague"

originCountry

This field is populated only when the request came from our iOS and Android native SDKs and is always set to "unknown" for browsers. See the detailed description in VPN Detection for mobile devices .

methods

More granular VPN detection methods that contribute to the final VPN detection result.

timezoneMismatch

• true when we detect that the geolocated IP address of the device does not match originTimezone read from the system settings
• false when originTimezone matches the location of the IP address from which we receive the traffic

The originTimezone includes a country-specific reference like "Europe/Prague". The timezoneMismatch will be true even if a visitor in Prague uses a Berlin VPN server, despite both countries being in the same GMT+2 UTC offset. For most use cases, timezoneMismatch functions well as an indicator of country mismatch between the browser and the IP address.

publicVPN

Detects whether the IP address of the event matches any publicly known VPN providers like NordVPN, Surfshark , ExpressVPN, ProtonVPN and others.

• true when our database of public VPN provider IP addresses contains the IP address of the event
• false if we did not find a match in our public VPN provider database

osMismatch

Compares the network signature of the request we have received through our proprietary algorithm and searches our internal database to determine whether the signature matches the OS (operating system) of the client.

• true if the network signature of the request we receive does not match the signature of the OS of the client
• false
  • if the network signature of the request we receive matches the signature of the OS of the client
  • if we fail to capture the OS information through our detection algorithm (happens in 10-15% cases)

The method is currently very accurate for Windows devices but might be less accurate for other OS combinations. We recommend using this flag to lower the false positive rate of the timezoneMismatch method.

auxiliaryMobile

This field is populated only when the request came from our iOS and Android native SDKs and is always set to false for browsers. See the detailed description in VPN Detection for mobile devices .

Browser Tamper Detection

There are very simple techniques to confuse less sophisticated fingerprinting algorithms through User Agent spoofing or trying to change the output of selected signals that are collected from the browser.

While our visitorID remains stable in those cases, tampering detection helps detect this behavior and flag visitors that have tried applying such techniques by comparing their browser signature to our statistical model.

The output of this model is captured as anomalyScore, a number indicating how improbable is the signature of the visitor's browser. Values close to 1 signify highly anomalous browsers and we consider anything above the threshold of 0.5 to be actionable (the result field conveniently captures that fact).

"tampering": {
  "data": {
    "result": true,
    "anomalyScore": 0.97 // close to 1 = high level of confidence
  }
}

"tampering": {
  "data": {
    "result": false,
    "anomalyScore": 0
  }
}

Virtual Machine Detection

Detects if the browser is running inside a virtualization software like VirtualBox by examining the browser configuration.

"virtualMachine": {
  "data": {
    "result": true
  }
}

"virtualMachine": {
  "data": {
    "result": false
  }
}

Privacy-Focused Settings

Firefox, Brave, and other privacy focused browsers actively fight fingerprinting and expose user settings that have the ability to randomize and obfuscate signal output. The Privacy-Focused Settings Smart Signal detects if those settings are enabled and reports it.

"privacySettings": {
  "data": {
    "result": true
  }
}

"privacySettings": {
  "data": {
    "result": false
  }
}

Developer Tools Detection

Detect if developer tools are manually opened in Chrome or Firefox browsers.

"developerTools": {
  "data": {
    "result": true
  }
}

"developerTools": {
  "data": {
    "result": false
  }
}

Remote Control Tools Detection

To detect the usage of remote control tools by checking if the request originated from a device being remotely controlled or remotely controlling another device, you must first enable this feature. Data will not be collected unless the remoteControlDetection flag is set to true. Once enabled, please contact our support team to activate the result exposure.

The currently supported remote tools are:

• AnyDesk: Supported on Windows, macOS, and Android (Webview)
• TeamViewer and RDP: Supported on Windows

"remoteControl": {
  "data": {
    "result": true
  }
}

"remoteControl": {
  "data": {
    "result": false
  }
}

IP Blocklist Matching

Block IP addresses based on their presence in different public and proprietary blocklists.

The feature uses a combination of our and vendor IP databases to determine whether

• The IP address is a known tor exit node (tor payload)
• The IP address has been part of a network attack or email spam attack (ipBlocklist.details payload)
• The IP address belongs to a public proxy provider (proxy payload)

📘

tor and proxy payloads do not utilize active Tor or proxy detection mechanisms.

"ipBlocklist": {
  "data": {
    "result": false,
    "details": {
      "emailSpam": false,
      "attackSource": false
    }
  }
}

"tor": {
  "data": {
    "result": false
  }
}

"proxy": {
  "data": {
    "result": false
  }
}

High-Activity Device

High-Activity Device searches for spikes in traffic connected to a single visitorID. It computes the amount of visits in the past 24 hours for each visitorID every five minutes and reports data.result as true if the number of visits for the past 24 hours surpasses a threshold.

High-Activity Device Threshold

The threshold is calculated for each customer separately and is determined through a normal traffic distribution. If the returned visitorID does more requests than 98% of other daily visitors, the High-Activity Smart Signal returns a positive result. If the traffic doesn't pass the threshold, data.result returns false and dailyRequests field isn't provided.

"highActivity": {
  "data": {
    "result": true,
    "dailyRequests": 42
  }
}

"highActivity": {
  "data": {
    "result": false
  }
}

Raw Device Attributes

Raw Device Attributes expose additional data points we normally collect through our JavaScript agent. This Smart signal is only available for web browsers.

🚧

Format Stability

Raw Device Attributes contents can change at any time in the future (includes complete scoped field removal) and we advise against setting dependencies on concrete field names inside of the data field.

"rawDeviceAttributes": {
  "data": {
    "<field_name>": {
      "value": 127
    }
}

Smart Signals for mobile devices

The smart signals listed below are applicable only to mobile devices. These signals provide valuable intelligence about the integrity of the device as well as the app. These smart signals are available as part of our Pro Plus and Enterprise plans. If you are interested in one or more of these signals, then please contact our support team to enable them for you.

When your app is integrated with Fingerprint (using either our native mobile SDKs or our multi-platform SDKs), you will start receiving these signals as part of our Server API and/or Webhooks responses.

Android Emulator Detection

Prevent spam and protect against nefarious Android emulator farms by ensuring the request is coming from a physical device. To detect emulators, several additional device attributes have to be collected and this increases the time to get a visitorId. The latency can be anywhere between 300 and 1500ms.

"emulator": {
  "data": {
    "result": false
  }
}

Android Tamper Detection

Ensure a safe Android mobile application environment by detecting rooted devices.

"rootApps": {
  "data": {
    "result": false
  }
}

Cloned App Detection

Identify if a request is coming from a cloned application. Making multiple clones of an app on the same device can be used to abuse promotions and get around app restrictions. (Android only)

"clonedApp": {
  "data": {
    "result": false
  }
}

Factory Reset Detection

Resetting a mobile device to default factory settings has been a common technique that fraudsters use to evade fraud detection mechanisms. When a factory reset is performed, it can

• Disguise the identity of the mobile device
• Be used to abuse promotional offers
• Prevent the mobile device from being blocked for fraudulent activity

The Factory Reset Smart Signal will indicate when the mobile device was most recently factory reset. You can use this information in your fraud detection mechanisms to flag a mobile device as suspicious.

As an example, for a mobile device that was factory reset on July 19, 2023, at 6 AM EST, the response will be:

"factoryReset": {
  "data": {
    // The time when the mobile device was factory reset in UTC
    "time": "2023-07-19T011:00:00Z",
    // The UTC 'time' represented as Unix epoch time
    "timestamp": 1689445704
  }
}

For mobile devices (and browsers) where a factory reset could not be detected, the time and timestamp fields in the response will correspond to the epoch as:

"factoryReset": {
  "data": {
    "time": "1970-01-01T00:00:00Z",
    "timestamp": 0
  }
}

Can a factory reset go undetected?

Yes. Here are a few possible scenarios in which a factory reset cannot be detected:

• The iOS device has genuinely not been factory reset since it was first activated.
• The iOS device that initiated the request is not a physical device, but an iOS simulator. (Conversely, a factory reset can be detected for Android emulators).
• Your iOS app does not use Fingerprint Identification SDK v2.3.0 or higher. The ability to detect factory reset was introduced only in v2.3.0.
• Your Android app uses an incompatible version of Fingerprint Identification SDK
  • < v2.3.0: The ability to detect factory reset was introduced only in v2.3.0.
  • v2.3.0 ≥ SDK < 2.3.4: Due to lazy signal collection, more than one request must be initiated from the same device for a factory reset to be detected. If you would like to use one of these versions in your app, you first need to contact our support team to enable factory reset detection for your account.
  • ≥ v2.3.4: Since the first request from a fraudulent device is the most critical request to detect fraud, we made improvements that allowed us to detect a factory reset during the first request itself.

Frida Detection

In simple terms, app hooking is a process where the behavior of a mobile app is changed by intercepting the app at runtime. Frida is a dynamic instrumentation toolkit that tech-savvy fraudsters can use to spoof an app at runtime and change its behavior. With this smart signal, you will know if Frida is being used to dynamically instrument the app.

"frida": {
  "data": {
    "result": false
  }
}

Geolocation Spoofing Detection

Fraudsters spoof the location of their mobile devices to fool fraud detection systems. With this smart signal, you will know if the location of the mobile device has been spoofed or not. For iOS only, this signal requires the host app to be granted Location Permission.

"locationSpoofing": {
  "data": {
    "result": false
  }
}

Jailbroken Device Detection

An iPhone or an iPad is labeled jailbroken when unauthorized modifications are made to the underlying operating system (iOS). Jailbreaking weakens a device’s built-in security features and makes it easy to steal sensitive information stored on the device. See Unauthorized modification of iOS for more information.

Fraudsters employ phishing mechanisms to trick users into installing jailbreak software on their devices and then take control of their devices. Your app (e.g. banking, e-commerce, etc) will not be able to distinguish the transactions made using jailbroken devices from those made using genuine devices. Honoring these fraudulent transactions will lead to financial losses (caused by chargeback expenses, account takeover, etc) and loss of trust among your customers.

The Jailbroken Smart Signal will help you detect if your app is being used from an iPhone/iPad that has been jailbroken and enable you to proactively act upon it.

"jailbroken": {
  "data": {
    "result": false
  }
}

VPN Detection for mobile devices

VPN apps for mobile devices are popular with both legit users and fraudsters. These VPN apps

• Protect their users’ privacy by encrypting all their traffic
• Allow their users to remain anonymous by giving them the ability to hide their real location

The VPN Detection Smart Signal for mobile devices will help you detect if your app is being used by a mobile device with an active VPN connection.

"vpn": {
  "data": {
    "result": false,
    "originTimezone": "Europe/Berlin",
    "originCountry": "DE" // country code string in the ISO 3166 format
    "methods": {
      "timezoneMismatch": false,
      "publicVPN": false,
      "auxiliaryMobile": false,
      "osMismatch": false // always false, irrelevant for native SDKs
    }
}

result

For mobile devices, result is true when either of the four listed methods is true:

• timezoneMismatch - true when the device is in a different timezone compared to the timezone of the originating IP address.
• publicVPN - true when the IP address matches one of the known IP addresses that belong to public VPN providers.
• auxiliaryMobile - true when other proprietary detection methods indicate the presence of a VPN.
• osMismatch - always false when using mobile SDKs.

originTimezone

This field indicates the IANA timezone that is currently set for the mobile device. In situations where a VPN is enabled, this timezone can be different from the timezone associated with the IP address.

The originTimezone usually includes a country-specific reference like "Europe/Prague". The timezoneMismatch will be true even if a mobile user in Prague uses a Berlin VPN server, despite both countries being in the same GMT+2 UTC offset. For most use cases, timezoneMismatch functions well as an indicator of country mismatch between the mobile device and the IP address.

This field is supported for both Android and iOS devices.

originCountry

This field indicates the country in which the mobile device is currently located. In situations where a VPN is enabled, this field can be very useful to know the real location of a device.

• For Android devices, this field is populated with the origin country only when your app is integrated with SDK v2.4.0 and higher. For lower versions of the SDK, the value is set to unknown. This field does not require Location Permissions to be enabled for your app.
• For iOS devices, originCountry is not yet supported and the value is set to unknown.