Precheck settings

Precheck is an interactionless challenge that deters suspicious visitors when they make a request on your site for the first time. Specifically, Precheck protects particularly sensitive routes on your application from primitive bots that attempt to scrape or execute primitive automations. This prevents these types of attacks from happening before they ever start.

To get started with Precheck, see Precheck Configuration settings.

First-time visitor protection

HUMAN determines if a visitor is a first-time one by checking if they have a HUMAN cookie. If they don’t, and if they’re attempting to access a particularly sensitive route directly, then HUMAN shows the Precheck interstitial page. This page displays a logo of your choice for two seconds, and users don’t need to interact with it.

Meanwhile, in the background, Precheck runs JavaScript checks or attempts to set the HUMAN cookie with the user. If these fail, it likely means it’s a bot, and Precheck blocks it. If the checks pass, then HUMAN automatically redirects the user back to the URL they had been attempting to access.

Precheck & Sightline Cyberfraud Defense

Precheck is an important part of Sightline Cyberfraud Defense, working together with the HUMAN Challenge and your own policy rules to protect your application from all types of threats. For example, while Precheck blocks primitive bots, some sophisticated bots may pass Precheck’s initial check. However, Precheck still flags these as potential threats, which can contribute to later blocks by our more sophisticated detection engine. These are referred to as ripple effect blocks and help Sightline’s defense network continuously improve and learn over time. This in turn helps Sightline provide the best protection possible for your application.