US Patent 10129299 Network beacon management of security policies

A variety of different mobile computing devices, such as a laptop, tablet or smartphone, may be used in a mixed set of computing environments. At least some of the computing environments may be hostile computing environments where users of the mobile computing devices may be exposed to unknown risks. Furthermore, the mobile computing devices may be unable to determine if a network in a particular computing environment is in fact the network the mobile device determines it to be. A beacon device may be attached to a network and provide mutual authentication for mobile devices in the computing environment. Various security policies may be adjusted as a result of the user device and the beacon device successfully authenticating the other device.