As iovation continues to expand its subscriber-base across multiple industries, the number of shared devices (meaning those devices seen at multiple sites) continues to rise. As we see this cross-over between subscribers rise, new and existing subscribers have a greater chance of encountering devices that already have a reputation. This increases the proactive value of device reputation and directly supports the significance of having a shared device database.

The increase in the number of shared devices can in part be understood by analyzing the population of “reactivated” devices. Reactivated devices are devices that iovation re-identifies after having not seen the device for more than 90 days. By studying these devices in contrast to the device population as a whole, it is clear that iovation’s expanding customer base is a significant contributor to this trend as a vast majority of reactivated devices have been seen in multiple customer networks. (more…)

IP Addresses have long been used in device fingerprinting solutions, but their utility has been hit-and-miss due to differences in how groups of IP addresses are managed. As a result, solutions relying on the IP address for device identification generally experience high false positive rates; this is especially true in cases where the same IP address has been issued to different end users over time.

Based on data iovation has collected from performing over two billion device identification requests, we’ve developed techniques to more accurately assess the relevance of an IP address in identifying and re-recognizing a device. This allows us to use IP address as a factor, when appropriate, and ignore it when not. (more…)