Getting started with DFP Protected Auth

Stytch's Device Fingerprinting (DFP) Protected Auth is a frontend SDK feature that utilizes DFP to ensure that only legitimate users can accces your auth flows. We offer support across our Javscript, iOS, and Android SDKs.

In this guide, you'll learn how to set up DFP Protected Auth. By the end, you'll have:

• Installed the frontend SDK.
• Turned on Observation mode.
• Turn on Decisioning mode.

If you haven't already, check out this high-level overview of DFP Protected Auth.

In order to complete this guide, you'll need the following:

• A Stytch project (either Consumer or B2B). If you don't have one already, in the Dashboard, click on your existing project name in the top left corner of the Dashboard, click Create a new project, and then select B2B Authentication or Consumer Authentication.
• The project Test environment's project_id and secret from the API keys section. You'll need to pass these values into the Authorization request header for most Stytch API calls.
• Device Fingerprinting enabled. If you don't have these product enabled, reach out to Stytch here.

Since DFP Protected Auth is built on top of our frontend authentication SDKs, you need to install and use one of the SDKs before you can enable DFP Protected Auth.

Stytch offers multiple starting guides and example apps that you can use to build the authentication flows. Here are a few guides you can use as a starting point:

• Email Magic Links for Consumer Auth
• Passwords for Consumer Auth
• Example Apps for Consumer Auth
• Example Apps fpr B2B SaaS Auth
• iOS example app
• Android example app
• React Native example app

If you're integrating the SDK directly into your application, you will need to check and ensure your SDK version is compatible with DFP Protected Auth. Here are the minimum versions for each SDK:

• Vanilla JS SDK: v2.2.0
• React-native SDK: v0.12.0
• iOS SDK: v 0.18.0
• Android SDK: v0.14.0

With your auth SDK installed, you will need to turn on DFP Protected Auth under Frontend SDKs in the Dashboard. By default, Stytch enables Observation mode when you first turn on DFP Protected Auth.

Observation mode automatically generates and submits a fingerprint to the Stytch API. However, the Stytch API will take no actions on the fingerprint's verdict.

This mode allows you to test out DFP Protected Auth before making any decision actions. This ensures that DFP Protected Auth won’t cause any important requests to be blocked before you have a chance to analyze the results.

Once you have DFP Protected Auth enabled in Observation mode, you can start seeing the results of the automatic fingerprint lookups at the Device Fingerprinting Dashboard page.

The Device Fingerprinting Dashboard page will give you a high-level view of the various fingerprints, verdicts, and verdict reasons your application is experiencing. You can also deep dive into individual fingerprints to understand the various devices that are querying your service.

Once you are comfortable with the results in our Device Fingerprinting service, you can change to the DFP Protected Auth to Decisioning mode. Once Decisioning mode is on, the Stytch API will react to each Device Fingerprinting lookup triggered by the SDK. Specifically, it will:

• Reject requests if the fingerprint has a BLOCK verdict and return a 401. You can be confident that a BLOCK verdict is an illegitimate attempt to access your service.
• Continue requests with fingerprints with an ALLOW verdict.
• By default, continue requests that can have a CHALLENGE verdict. That behavior can be changed and you can learn about the option in the handling challenges guide.

With Decisioning mode on, your application's auth flows are now secured with DFP Protected Auth.

Learn about handling challenges with DFP Protected Auth.