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Jet_ZHU_1222_30's avatar
Jet_ZHU_1222_30
Historic F5 Account
Jul 23, 2018

What are the differences between fingerprint and device ID?

Hi guys,

 

the concepts of fingerprint and device ID really confused me for a while.

 

A device identifier (Device ID) consists of an opaque string that identifies a client application using JS

 

Fingerprint detects browsers and bots by collecting browser attributes

 

What are the differences and how do they work?

 

ASM Advanced WAF
security
  • nathe's avatar
    nathe
    Icon for Cirrocumulus rankCirrocumulus
    Jul 23, 2018

    Device ID is how ASM can track the client itself, rather than the application, and is used in DoS protections in a scenario where an attacker is changing the client IP address but ASM can still track that it's the same attacker, based on Device ID.

     

    Fingerprinting is, as you say, focused on the browser itself, and is used for browser type protections, such as Web Scraping.

     

    That's my understanding anyway.

     

    Hope this helps,

     

    N