Patent ID: 8601550

Claim:
A method of determining and updating the computing environment of a client computer, comprising: a client computer sending a request to an access server requesting access to a remote resource; the access server establishing a secure communication channel between the client computer and a server system; installing a pre-authentication interrogator agent onto the client computer using the secure communication channel, the server system receiving a first set of interrogation results produced by the pre-authentication interrogator agent that describe one or more objects of the computing environment of the client computer; authenticating that the first set of interrogation results correspond to at least one of a known client computer or to a known client computer user; installing a post-authentication interrogator agent on the client computer using the secure communication channel, the server system receiving a second set of interrogation results that describe one or more other objects of the computing environment of the client computer; and providing the remote resource to the client computer over the secure communication channel upon determination by a policy server that the first and second sets of interrogation results comply with a policy rule, the policy rule specifying a condition for the user of the client device to access the requested resource, and wherein the remote resource is provided by the server system.