Authenticating mobile traffic

A non-transitory computer storage medium encoded with computer program instructions that when executed by at least one computer cause the at least one computer to perform operations comprising:

• receiving a first request for a communication strategy from a remote device over a network;
• providing a current communication strategy file to the remote device, the current communication strategy file including:
• a name identifying a field to be added to the header of subsequent requests from the remote device, and a value to be at least one of placed in the field identified by the name and encrypted where the encrypted value is placed in the field identified by the name in the subsequent requests;
• receiving a second request for access to a processing system;
• authenticating the second request according to at least one communication strategy comprising
• determining that a field in a header of the second request includes the field identified by the name, and
• determining whether the field in the header of the second request contains at least one of the value and the encrypted value;
• rejecting the request in response to determining the field in the header does not include at least one of the value and the encrypted value;
• and
• forwarding the second request to the processing system in response to determining that the field in the header includes at least one of the value and the encrypted value.

A system comprising:

• a communication strategy generator agent programmed to generate at least one communication strategy, the at least one communication strategy communication strategy including characteristics used to authenticate requests from device client devices based on the inclusion of the characteristics in the request;
• an authorization agent programmed to authenticate requests according to the at least one communication strategy;
• a processing agent programmed to:
• receive a first request for a communication strategy from a remote device over a network,
• transmit to the remote device a current communication strategy of the at least one communication strategy to the remote device, the current communication strategy including:
• a name identifying a field to be added to the header of subsequent requests from the remote device, and a value to be at least one of placed in the field identified by the name and encrypted where the encrypted value is placed in the field identified by the name in the subsequent requests,
• receive, from the remote device, a second request for access to a processing system,
• request authenticate of the second request from the authorization agent, the authentication comprising:
• determining that a field in a header of the second request includes the field identified by the name, and
• determining whether the field in the header of the second request contains at least one of the value and the encrypted value;
• rejecting the request in response to determining the field in the header does not include at least one of the value and the encrypted value;
• and
• forwarding the second request to the processing system in response to determining that the field in the header includes at least one of the value and the encrypted value;
• and
• a business processing system programmed to process the request.