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What is the use of User-Agent request header?
The User-Agent request header is a characteristic string that lets servers and network peers identify the application, operating system, vendor, and/or version of the requesting user agent.
What is User-Agent in header?
The HTTP headers User-Agent is a request header that allows a characteristic string that allows network protocol peers to identify the Operating System and Browser of the web-server. Your browser sends the user agent to every website you connect to. The data of the header field varies from browser to browser.
Can User-Agent be empty?
Your blank user agent just means that a software developer forgot to add a user agent to their software.
What does User Agent in request header contain?
The User-Agent request-header field contains information about the user agent originating the request. This is for statistical purposes, the tracing of protocol violations, and automated recognition of user agents for the sake of tailoring responses to avoid particular user agent limitations.
How do I change the user agent header?
How to Change Your User-Agent on Chrome & Edge
- Right Click Anywhere in Webpage > Inspect. Alternatively, you can use CTR+Shift+I on Windows, Cmd + Opt +J on Mac.
- Choose More Tools > Network Conditions.
- Uncheck Select Automatically Checkbox.
- Choose One Among the Built-In User-Agents List.
Should I block empty User-Agent?
If you want to ban anything but common browsers then blocking an empty user-agent might help you a bit. But this will only help against a few non-browsers, most HTTP clients actually set some User-Agent and often they set it to something which looks like a browser in order to bypass simple restrictions.
What does the request header for user agent mean?
User-Agent The User-Agent request header is a characteristic string that lets servers and network peers identify the application, operating system, vendor, and/or version of the requesting user agent. Please read Browser detection using the user agent for why serving different Web pages or services to different browsers is usually a bad idea.
How to filter request with no user agent?
For Part of the request to filter on, choose Header. For Header, choose User-Agent. For Transformation, choose None. For Regex patterns to match to request, keep the default selection of Create regex pattern set. For New pattern set name, enter testpattern.
How to block HTTP requests with no user agent?
Note: Select Global if your web ACL is set up for Amazon CloudFront. For Type, choose Regex match. For Part of the request to filter on, choose Header. For Header, choose User-Agent. For Transformation, choose None. For Regex patterns to match to request, keep the default selection of Create regex pattern set.
Why are user agent based attacks a risk?
User-Agent based attacks are a low-key risk that shouldn’t be overlooked. Old, unpatched vulnerabilities allow hackers to take over systems using the User-Agent string — an elementary part of virtually every HTTP request.