A system maintains a workspace environment of enterprise applications on a mobile device. The system receives enterprise applications for installation on the mobile device, wherein functionality has been inserted into binary executables of the enterprise applications to force the enterprise applications to communicate with an application management agent to obtain a security policy including a validity time period value related to keeping the workspace valid. The application management agent provides cryptographic keys to the enterprise applications to share encrypted messages. Upon launching, an enterprise application stores a workspace expiration time value as an encrypted message. The workspace expiration time value is extended if the user continues its use or, by another enterprise application, if the other enterprise application is launched by the user before an expiration of the expiration time value. The application management agent requests authentication credentials from the user if the workspace expiration time value expires.