Identify accounts that show related behaviors

This document describes how to identify accounts that show related behaviors. For example, you might want to identify all user accounts that are created by a malicious user. You can find accounts, account groups, and account group memberships that show related behaviors.

Identifying accounts that show related behaviors helps you find groups of fake accounts and account takeovers when a previously legitimate account is related to accounts with abusive behavior.

This feature is only available using the reCAPTCHA Enterprise REST API and Client Libraries.

To retrieve a list of accounts related to a specified account, use the relatedaccountgroupmemberships.search method.

Before using any of the request data, make the following replacements:

PROJECT_ID: your Google Cloud project ID.
ACCOUNT_ID: the identifier that is uniquely associated with the user account for a user account to your website.
PAGE_SIZE: Optional. The number of account memberships to include in the response. The default value is 50, and the maximum value is 1,000. If the number of account memberships is greater than the page size, the response contains a pagination token that you can use to retrieve the next page of results.
NEXT_PAGE_TOKEN: Optional. The value of nextPageToken returned in the earlier response of this method. Specify this parameter to query more account memberships.

HTTP method and URL:

POST https://recaptchaenterprise.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/relatedaccountgroupmemberships:search?page_size=PAGE_SIZE&page_token=NEXT_PAGE_TOKEN

Request JSON body:

{
  "accountId": "ACCOUNT_ID"
}

To send your request, choose one of these options:

curl

Note: The following command assumes that you have logged in to the gcloud CLI with your user account by running gcloud init or gcloud auth login , or by using Cloud Shell, which automatically logs you into the gcloud CLI . You can check the currently active account by running gcloud auth list.

Save the request body in a file named request.json, and execute the following command:

curl -X POST \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth print-access-token)" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8" \
     -d @request.json \
     "https://recaptchaenterprise.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/relatedaccountgroupmemberships:search?page_size=PAGE_SIZE&page_token=NEXT_PAGE_TOKEN"

PowerShell

Note: The following command assumes that you have logged in to the gcloud CLI with your user account by running gcloud init or gcloud auth login . You can check the currently active account by running gcloud auth list.

Save the request body in a file named request.json, and execute the following command:

$cred = gcloud auth print-access-token
$headers = @{ "Authorization" = "Bearer $cred" }

Invoke-WebRequest `
    -Method POST `
    -Headers $headers `
    -ContentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8" `
    -InFile request.json `
    -Uri "https://recaptchaenterprise.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/relatedaccountgroupmemberships:search?page_size=PAGE_SIZE&page_token=NEXT_PAGE_TOKEN" | Select-Object -Expand Content

You should receive a JSON response similar to the following:

{
  "relatedAccountGroupMemberships": [
    {
      "name": "projects/projectId/relatedaccountgroups/groupId187/memberships/membershipId95",
      "accountId": "4RopXS59"
    },
    {
      "name": "projects/projectId/relatedaccountgroups/groupId91/memberships/membershipId23",
      "accountId": "HVMv1DTb"
    }
  ],

  "nextPageToken": "Q2N_rZgxUXOjNZtK1T1i0Q"
}

Code sample

Java

To authenticate to reCAPTCHA Enterprise, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.


import com.google.cloud.recaptchaenterprise.v1.RecaptchaEnterpriseServiceClient;
import com.google.recaptchaenterprise.v1.RelatedAccountGroupMembership;
import com.google.recaptchaenterprise.v1.SearchRelatedAccountGroupMembershipsRequest;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException;

public class SearchRelatedAccountGroupMemberships {

  public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException, NoSuchAlgorithmException {
    // TODO(developer): Replace these variables before running the sample.
    // projectId: Google Cloud Project Id.
    String projectId = "project-id";

    // Unique id of the customer.
    String accountId = "default" + UUID.randomUUID().toString().split("-")[0];

    searchRelatedAccountGroupMemberships(projectId, accountId);
  }

  // List group memberships for the account id.
  public static void searchRelatedAccountGroupMemberships(
      String projectId, String accountId) throws IOException {
    try (RecaptchaEnterpriseServiceClient client = RecaptchaEnterpriseServiceClient.create()) {

      SearchRelatedAccountGroupMembershipsRequest request =
          SearchRelatedAccountGroupMembershipsRequest.newBuilder()
              .setProject(projectId)
              .setAccountId(accountId)
              .build();

      for (RelatedAccountGroupMembership groupMembership :
          client.searchRelatedAccountGroupMemberships(request).iterateAll()) {
        System.out.println(groupMembership.getName());
      }
      System.out.printf(
          "Finished searching related account group memberships for %s!", accountId);
    }
  }
}

Retrieve related account groups

To retrieve a list of account groups with similar behaviors, use the relatedaccountgroups.list method.

Before using any of the request data, make the following replacements:

PROJECT_ID: your Google Cloud project ID.
PAGE_SIZE: Optional. The number of account groups to include in the response. The default value is 50, and the maximum value is 1,000. If the number of account groups is greater than the page size, the response contains a pagination token that you can use to retrieve the next page of results.
NEXT_PAGE_TOKEN: Optional. The value of nextPageToken returned in an earlier response of this method. Specify this parameter to query more account groups.

HTTP method and URL:

GET https://recaptchaenterprise.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/relatedaccountgroups?page_size=PAGE_SIZE&page_token=NEXT_PAGE_TOKEN

To send your request, choose one of these options:

curl

Execute the following command:

curl -X GET \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth print-access-token)" \
     "https://recaptchaenterprise.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/relatedaccountgroups?page_size=PAGE_SIZE&page_token=NEXT_PAGE_TOKEN"

PowerShell

Execute the following command:

$cred = gcloud auth print-access-token
$headers = @{ "Authorization" = "Bearer $cred" }

Invoke-WebRequest `
    -Method GET `
    -Headers $headers `
    -Uri "https://recaptchaenterprise.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/relatedaccountgroups?page_size=PAGE_SIZE&page_token=NEXT_PAGE_TOKEN" | Select-Object -Expand Content

You should receive a JSON response similar to the following:

{
  "relatedAccountGroups": [
    {
      "name": "projects/projectId/relatedaccountgroups/groupId1"
    },
    {
      "name": "projects/projectId/relatedaccountgroups/groupId2"
    }
  ],
  "nextPageToken": "BenimQwKzIOibbOO2Lhisw"
}

Code sample

Java

To authenticate to reCAPTCHA Enterprise, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.


import com.google.cloud.recaptchaenterprise.v1.RecaptchaEnterpriseServiceClient;
import com.google.recaptchaenterprise.v1.ListRelatedAccountGroupsRequest;
import com.google.recaptchaenterprise.v1.RelatedAccountGroup;
import java.io.IOException;

public class ListRelatedAccountGroups {

  public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
    // TODO(developer): Replace these variables before running the sample.
    // projectId : Google Cloud Project Id.
    String projectId = "project-id";

    listRelatedAccountGroups(projectId);
  }

  // List related account groups in the project.
  public static void listRelatedAccountGroups(String projectId) throws IOException {
    try (RecaptchaEnterpriseServiceClient client = RecaptchaEnterpriseServiceClient.create()) {

      ListRelatedAccountGroupsRequest request =
          ListRelatedAccountGroupsRequest.newBuilder().setParent("projects/" + projectId).build();

      System.out.println("Listing related account groups..");
      for (RelatedAccountGroup group : client.listRelatedAccountGroups(request).iterateAll()) {
        System.out.println(group.getName());
      }
    }
  }
}

Retrieve related account group memberships

To retrieve a list of account group memberships with similar behaviors, use the relatedaccountgroupmemberships.list method.

Before using any of the request data, make the following replacements:

PROJECT_ID: your Google Cloud project ID.
GROUP_ID: Name of the account group for which you want to find related memberships.
PAGE_SIZE: Optional. The number of account group memberships to include in the response. The default value is 50, and the maximum value is 1,000. If the number of account group memberships is greater than the page size, the response contains a pagination token that you can use to retrieve the next page of results.
NEXT_PAGE_TOKEN: Optional. The value of nextPageToken returned in the earlier response of this method. Specify this parameter to query more account group memberships.

HTTP method and URL:

GET https://recaptchaenterprise.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/relatedaccountgroups/GROUP_ID/memberships?page_size=PAGE_SIZE&page_token=NEXT_PAGE_TOKEN

To send your request, choose one of these options:

curl

Execute the following command:

curl -X GET \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth print-access-token)" \
     "https://recaptchaenterprise.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/relatedaccountgroups/GROUP_ID/memberships?page_size=PAGE_SIZE&page_token=NEXT_PAGE_TOKEN"

PowerShell

Execute the following command:

$cred = gcloud auth print-access-token
$headers = @{ "Authorization" = "Bearer $cred" }

Invoke-WebRequest `
    -Method GET `
    -Headers $headers `
    -Uri "https://recaptchaenterprise.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/relatedaccountgroups/GROUP_ID/memberships?page_size=PAGE_SIZE&page_token=NEXT_PAGE_TOKEN" | Select-Object -Expand Content

You should receive a JSON response similar to the following:

{
  "relatedAccountGroupMemberships": [
    {
      "name": "projects/projectId/relatedaccountgroups/groupId/memberships/membershipId1",
      "accountId": "4RopXS59"
    },
    {
      "name": "projects/projectId/relatedaccountgroups/groupId/memberships/membershipId2",
      "accountId": "HVMv1DTb"
    }
  ],
  "nextPageToken": "WPuIn8GHU3JvcJqgvmE7Aw"
}

Code sample

Java

To authenticate to reCAPTCHA Enterprise, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.


import com.google.cloud.recaptchaenterprise.v1.RecaptchaEnterpriseServiceClient;
import com.google.recaptchaenterprise.v1.ListRelatedAccountGroupMembershipsRequest;
import com.google.recaptchaenterprise.v1.RelatedAccountGroupMembership;
import java.io.IOException;

public class ListRelatedAccountGroupMemberships {

  public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
    // TODO(developer): Replace these variables before running the sample.
    // projectId: Google Cloud Project Id.
    String projectId = "project-id";

    // relatedAccountGroup: Name of the account group.
    String relatedAccountGroup = "related-account-group-name";

    listRelatedAccountGroupMemberships(projectId, relatedAccountGroup);
  }

  /** Given a group name, list memberships in the group. */
  public static void listRelatedAccountGroupMemberships(
      String projectId, String relatedAccountGroup) throws IOException {
    try (RecaptchaEnterpriseServiceClient client = RecaptchaEnterpriseServiceClient.create()) {

      // Construct the request.
      ListRelatedAccountGroupMembershipsRequest request =
          ListRelatedAccountGroupMembershipsRequest.newBuilder()
              .setParent(
                  String.format(
                      "projects/%s/relatedaccountgroups/%s", projectId, relatedAccountGroup))
              .build();

      for (RelatedAccountGroupMembership relatedAccountGroupMembership :
          client.listRelatedAccountGroupMemberships(request).iterateAll()) {
        System.out.println(relatedAccountGroupMembership.getName());
      }
      System.out.println("Finished listing related account group memberships.");
    }
  }
}

What's next

Learn about the following account protection features:
- Multi-factor authentication
- Password leak detection

Identify accounts that show related behaviors

Retrieve accounts related to a specific account

curl

PowerShell

Code sample

Java

Retrieve related account groups

curl

PowerShell

Code sample

Java

Retrieve related account group memberships

curl

PowerShell

Code sample

Java

What's next