Abstract: The present disclosure relates to systems, non-transitory computer-readable media, and methods for utilizing deferred edge authentication to validate requests for resources of a content delivery network. In one or more embodiments, the disclosed systems receive, at an edge server from a client device, a request for a content item. In some embodiments, in response to receiving the request, the disclosed systems determine that the content item is stored at the edge server with a corresponding response header received from an origin server and validate the request, at the edge server, utilizing security information from the response header. In some embodiments, in response to receiving the request, the disclosed systems determine that the content item is not available at the edge server, request the content item from the origin server, and receive the content item with the corresponding response header from the origin server.