Device Identification And How It Is Used

While modern technology has greatly improved the lives of millions of people, it is also provided thieves with high tech opportunities. For instance, it is not unheard of for thieves to hack into a company's account and steal the financial information of thousands of people. Companies that rely on the internet are particularly vulnerable. However, companies have found that there are many ways to prevent and curtail internet break ins. One of the most common means of protection that many companies are employing is device identification.

Device identification, as the name implies, will identify a computer that tries to access a company website. This type of security system is commonly used by banks so that its clients can safely conduct online financial transactions. A number of well-known airlines also use device ID. Device identification will check the user's computer physical location, time zone and IP address. For example, if a client is known to live in Los Angeles and he or she always accesses the computer from his or her personal laptop, device identification will send up a red flag is a computer from South Africa tries to access the account. If this were to occur, the server would deny access to the unknown computer. Device affiliation can also automatically block certain IP addresses from ever being able to access a particular server.

There are two main methods of device identification. These are device tagging and device fingerprinting. Both methods have their pros and cons and no one method is foolproof. For instance, either one of these methods sometimes block a genuine user from accessing his or her account from a new computer, especially if the user is abroad at the time. In some cases, fraudsters are able to get around this security system and hack into a person's account anyway. However, device identification does greatly reduce the chances of a user's account being hacked into.

Device affiliation methods have also come under fire from privacy advocates, who are concerned about how the banks are handling the information gathered by device identification. Some identification methods will enable a bank to know who lives with a client, where a client travels and even his or her shopping habits. A company that uses this means of security may also be able to sell a consumer's data to a third party.

Device identification has done a lot to make the internet more secure. While there are legitimate privacy concerns, most companies are more concerned with protecting themselves and their client's financial information than they are about consumer's privacy. Device affiliation is one of the many ways that companies secure their websites from phishers, hackers and thieves. Device identification will allow a company to see which computer is being used to access an account and will determine whether that computer belongs to the user. While this means of security is not always 100% accurate, a good device affiliation security system will be able to enable genuine users to get onto their accounts while blocking fraudsters and thieves from obtaining access.


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