US Patent 9426182 Context-based authentication of mobile devices

A system and method are disclosed for adaptive authentication. An access control system stores policies for an enterprise, where each policy specifies a type of access control. The type of access control includes one or more security rules, which may specify authentication procedures, allowable behaviors, or both. The access control system stores a mapping from contexts of requests to interact with applications and access control policies. When a user requests access to an application associated with the enterprise via a client, the access control system receives the context of the request. The access control system selects an access control policy for the context of the request. The access control system sends access control information from the access control policy selected to the client. The client interacts with the user to perform the authentication.