Protect Your Network With Device Identification

Sadly, with the advent of the Internet, there has been an increase in identity theft.  This poses a problem for both customers and online stores.  For customers, identity theft not only drains their finances, but it also ruins their good name.  And for online stores, identity theft poses a risk to their reputation. a  Just think about Sony Playstation, whose network was recently hacked by criminals.  All of their data was at risk, including sensitive information about their customers.  Consequently, they have received a branding that will be hard to fight.  Fortunately, there is a way you can prevent such an occurrence for your store.  It involves utilizing Device Identification.

Without device identification, fraudsters can trick the network by deleting their existing cookies and then creating a spoof of their IP addresses.   In turn, when they go to the checkout section, they can take on another customer’s identity.  Online stores that check IP addresses at checkout are the most vulnerable to this type of attack.  But with device recognition, the network looks at IP addresses and cookies to identity the computer.  If one element is not right, the system will ask for another means of identification.

The specific name for this process is known as device tagging.  It relies on more conclusive data for identifying a computer.  What happens is that a tag becomes embedded in all of the webpages a customer visits.  The tag will determine if a customer can continue into a more exclusive area.  Your company’s IT department will determine what criteria needs to be met to satisfy this code.   If the code is satisfied, anapproval tag will be placed in the cache. Device Identification
 
Tagged devices are given 1 of 4 classifications.  First there is “true positive,” which means the device is considered safe.  Next there is “true negative,” where the device is determined to be foreign.  At this point, it will need to go through further criteria to be approved by the network.   The other categories encompass a mixture of these classifications.  If the device is deemed to be partially safe, users may only have to go through one level of checking to access the system.   The CAPTCHA codes some sites use to verify human identity are an example.  In such situations, the system deems the user to be safe enough to go to the next level, but they want to make sure they are not a bot trying to hack into the network.

In conclusion, if a company utilizes an appropriate device identification strategy, they should have very few problems with identity theft.  In turn, customers will trust making transactions with their network.  Yes, going through this process will require a little bit of time, effort and money but in exchange, you will protect your brand’s image.