Patent ID: 7954152

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving a request to establish an authenticated user session at a client device, the authenticated user session allowing access to a resource; establishing, by a processor configured with executable instructions, the authenticated user session so that a user can access the resource; applying, to the authenticated user session, a session timer enforcing a time limit policy that requires the authenticated user session to expire after the session timer reaches a timing limit; receiving a plurality of subsequent requests during the authenticated user session; detecting at least one periodic pattern from the plurality of subsequent requests, wherein, detecting the at least one periodic pattern includes aggregating a subset of the plurality of subsequent requests by at least one property and detecting a time pattern occurring in the subset; determining whether a subsequent request corresponds to a user-initiated request or an automatically-initiated request based on the at least one periodic pattern; responsive to a first determination that the subsequent request is the user-initiated request, resetting the session timer to extend the authenticated user session; and responsive to a second determination that the subsequent request is the automatically-initiated request, ignoring the automatically-initiated request such that a current state of the session timer is maintained.