Techniques for secure network communication

1. A machine-implemented method, comprising:

receiving credentials and a secret from a user via a browser over a network connection;

authenticating the credentials and the secret for purposes of establishing a session identifier for a secure session between the user and a secure resource over the network connection;

communicating the session identifier to the browser of the user for inclusion with each transaction the user has during the secure session, the secure session having a plurality of transactions; and

generating by a client of the user and ensuring that each transaction received from the user during the secure session also includes a unique and never before used during the secure session sequence number supplied by the client of the user, the client incrementing the sequence number for each transaction of the secure session, and when any particular transaction of said secure session has said unique and never before used sequence number continuing the secure session and handling the transaction without requiring re-authentication of the user, and when the transaction does not have the unique and unused sequence number terminating the secure session.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising, dynamically pushing a validator plugin to the browser upon initial contact from the user, wherein the validator plugin generates and supplies the secret and each of the subsequent sequence numbers.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising, removing the validator plugin from the browser before terminating the secure session so that the validator plugin is specific to the secure session and is not capable of being reused with a different secure session that may occur between the user and the resource.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein communicating further includes setting a cookie via the browser on a client of the user for retrieval of the session identifier by the browser during the secure session.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein setting further includes setting the cookie as a JSESSION cookie managed by a JAVA applet plugin of the browser.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein ensuring further includes acquiring with each transaction during the secure session said particular unique sequence number within Uniform Resource Locator (URL) information that the JAVA applet of the browser supplied on behalf of the user.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

incrementing randomly a unique sequence number used in a prior transaction of the secure session to create the unique sequence number.

8. A machine-implemented system, comprising:

a client with memory having executable instructions for a validator plugin that processes on the client of a user and within a World-Wide Web (WWW) browser that also processes on the client; and

a server with memory having executable instructions for a server validator that processes on the server of a network;

wherein the validator plugin supplies a secret for initial user authentication to a resource controlled by the server and the validator plugin supplies a unique sequence number for each transaction of a plurality of transactions of a secure session that the user makes via the WWW browser to interact with the resource controlled by the server during the secure session between the user and the resource over the network, each unique sequence number is never before used during any previous transaction of the secure session and is presented for a particular current transaction during the secure session, and wherein the server validator acquires the secret upon user authentication and ensures that before any particular transaction can proceed during the secure session that a new and unused sequence number is supplied from the validator plugin.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the validator plugin is delivered and installed in the WWW browser before the user attempts to authenticate to the resource via an out-of-band network transaction.

10. The system of claim 8 , wherein the validator plugin is dynamically delivered in real time to and installed on the WWW browser by the server and over the network connection when the user makes a first and initial attempt to authenticate with the resource to create a first and initial secure session, and wherein the validator plugin remains available on the client for use to supply different secrets and sequence numbers for subsequent attempts by the user to establish other secure sessions with the resource.

11. The system of claim 10 , wherein a different and unique instance of the validator plugin is dynamically delivered in real time to and installed on the WWW browser by the server and over the network connection each time the user attempts to create a different secure session with the resource, and wherein each instance of the validator plugin is removed from the WWW browser when its particular secure session terminates.

12. The system of claim 8 , wherein the validator plugin and the server validator each use a same hashing algorithm to hash each Uniform Resource Locator link (URL) requested with each transaction into a particular hash value, each hash value encrypted with the secret and each encrypted hash value along with a particular unique sequence number supplied by the validator plugin with each transaction as a trusted browser cookie that the server validator independently verifies for each transaction during the secure session.

13. The system of claim 8 , wherein the validator plugin and the server validator are each configured to set a valid range for the sequence numbers and an increment value associated with incrementing a previously used sequence number to a next available sequence number.

14. A machine-implemented system, comprising:

a server machine having executable instructions for a browser configuration service that processes on the server machine of a network; and

the server machine also having executable instructions for a server authentication service that processes on the server machine of the network;

wherein the browser configuration service configures a browser plugin for installation and execution on a client machine of a user to supply and coordinate a secret between the user and a resource for use when the user attempts to authenticate to the server authentication service to establish a session with the resource over the network, said session comprising a plurality of transactions, and wherein the browser configuration service configures the browser plugin to supply a unique sequence number with each transaction of the session to the server authentication service, the unique sequence number was never before used during any previous transaction of the session and is presented for a particular transaction of the session, and wherein for each transaction attempted by the user during the session the server authentication service validates that a supplied sequence number is being presented for a first time and is unused, and when the sequence number being presented for the transaction is presented for the first time and is unused, the session is permitted to continue without requiring further authentication of the user, otherwise the server authentication service terminates the session.

15. The system of claim 14 , wherein the server authentication service supplies a session identifier for the session to the browser of the client machine for use with transactions of the session.

16. The system of claim 14 , wherein the browser configuration service configures the browser plugin to increment the sequence numbers by a random amount for each transaction.

17. The system of claim 14 , wherein the browser configuration service configures the browser plugin to supply a trusted browser cookie with each transaction, the trusted browser cookie includes an encrypted hash value, the hash value produced by hashing a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) link that is encrypted with the secret, and wherein the trusted browser cookie also has appended thereto the unique sequence number for the transaction that it is associated with.