Skip to main content

Clerk Protect

Clerk Protect uses system protections to block or challenge abusive sign-ups inside Clerk's authentication flows. You can turn on these protections from the Protections page in the Clerk Dashboard, and Clerk enforces them. See Set up Protect for more information.

Clerk Protect also includes features such as Device Trust, which can require a second factor during password sign-in.

How system protections work

For a sign-up, an enabled system protection takes one of three actions:

  • Allow: The attempt continues.
  • Challenge: The user completes a verification step, then continues. Most people pass it without doing anything.
  • Block: Clerk rejects the attempt.

Each system protection decides when to challenge or block. Every challenge and block appears as a Protect event in Application Logs.

Available system protections

Clerk builds and maintains the following system protections. The Action column shows what each protection does when its criteria are met; otherwise, that protection allows the sign-up to continue.

ProtectionWhat it doesAction
Challenge suspicious sign-upsChallenges sign-ups that look automated or come through VPNs, Tor, or proxies.Challenge
Require Device Intelligence checksBlocks a sign-up created by a browser that has no verified Device Intelligence result.Block

Note

Device Intelligence runs background checks in browsers without adding a visible step. It doesn't block sign-ups on its own; Require Device Intelligence checks uses the result when enabled.

Feedback

What did you think of this content?

Last updated on

GitHubEdit on GitHub