Mobile Agents Computing: Security Issues and Algorithmic Solutions

2005 ◽  
pp. 22-22
Author(s):  
Nicola Santoro
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Agents ◽  
Security Issues

Securing Mobile-Agent Systems through Collaboration

2010 ◽  
pp. 154-180
Author(s):  
Mohammed Hussain ◽  
David B. Skillicorn
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Agent ◽  
Mobile Agents ◽  
Telecommunication Networks ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
System Calls ◽  
Mobile Agent Systems ◽  
Privacy Attack ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The One

Mobile agents are self-contained programs that migrate among computing devices to achieve tasks on behalf of users. Autonomous and mobile agents make it easier to develop complex distributed systems. Many applications can benefit greatly from employing mobile agents, especially e-commerce. For instance, mobile agents can travel from one e-shop to another, collecting offers based on customers’ preferences. Mobile agents have been used to develop systems for telecommunication networks, monitoring, information retrieval, and parallel computing. Characteristics of mobile agents, however, introduce new security issues which require carefully designed solutions. On the one hand, malicious agents may violate privacy, attack integrity, and monopolize hosts’ resources. On the other hand, malicious hosts may manipulate agents’ memory, return wrong results from system calls, and deny access to necessary resources. This has motivated research focused on devising techniques to address the security of mobile-agent systems. This chapter surveys the techniques securing mobile-agent systems. The survey categorizes the techniques based on the degree of collaboration used to achieve security. This categorization resembles the difference between this chapter and other surveys in the literature where categorization is on the basis of entities/ parts protected and underlying methodologies used for protection. This survey shows the importance of collaboration in enhancing security and discusses its implications and challenges.

Mobile Agent Authentication and Authorization

2009 ◽  
pp. 930-937
Author(s):  
Sheng-Uei Guan
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Agent ◽  
Mobile Agents ◽  
Research Effort ◽  
The Internet ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Network Bandwidth ◽  
Authentication And Authorization ◽  
Authentication Schemes

With the increasing usage of the Internet, electronic commerce (e-commerce) has been catching on fast in a lot of business areas. As e-commerce booms, there comes a demand for a better system to manage and carry out transactions. This leads to the development of agent-based e-commerce. In this new approach, agents are employed on behalf of users to carry out various e-commerce activities. Although the tradeoff of employing mobile agents is still under debate (Milojicic, 1999), using mobile agents in e-commerce attracts much research effort, as it may improve the potential of their applications in e-commerce (Guan & Yang, 1999, 2004). One advantage of using agents is that communication cost can be reduced. Agents traveling and transferring only necessary information saves network bandwidth and reduces the chances of network congestion. Also, users can schedule their agents to travel asynchronously to the destinations and collect information or execute other applications, while they can disconnect from the network (Wong, Paciorek, & Moore, 1999). Although agent-based technology offers such advantages, the major factor holding people back from employing agents is still the security issues involved. On one hand, hosts cannot trust incoming agents belonging to unknown owners, because malicious agents may launch attacks on the hosts and other agents. On the other hand, agents may also have concerns on the reliability of hosts and will be reluctant to expose their secrets to distrustful hosts. To build bilateral trust in an e-commerce environment, the authorization and authentication schemes for mobile agents should be designed well. Authentication checks the credentials of an agent before processing an agent’s requests. If the agent is found to be suspicious, the host may decide to deny its service requests. Authorization refers to the permissions granted for the agent to access whichever resources it requested.

A Security Strategy of Mobile Agent System

2013 ◽  
Vol 336-338 ◽  
pp. 2401-2405
Author(s):  
Ying Li ◽  
Bao Fang Hu ◽  
Chen Lin Wei
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Agent ◽  
Mobile Agents ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Digital Certificate ◽  
Security Strategy ◽  
Agent System ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Third Party ◽  
Agent Migration

The paper aims at the security issues of the mobile agent system to propose a mobile agent system based on tracking mechanism which has a third-party certification center similar to an authority sector, whose hosts and mobile agents in mobile agent system are required to be registered in the third-party certification center so as to obtain a digital certificate issued by the third-party certification center. Each server launching mobile agent has a static communication agent Tracker, responsible for maintaining the context information launched by the mobile agent and agent migration thereby solving problems in the labyrinth and authentication of mobile agent in traditional mobile agent system so that the existing mobile agent system can become more secure and reliable.

scholarly journals Security Issues in Mobile Agents

2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Priyanka Dadhich ◽  
Dr.Kamlesh Dutta ◽  
Dr. M.C. Govil
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Agents ◽  
Security Issues

Mobile Code and Security Issues

2009 ◽  
pp. 2568-2582
Author(s):  
E. S. Samundeeswari ◽  
F. Mary Magdalene Jane
Keyword(s):  
Programming Languages ◽  
Mobile Agents ◽  
Rapid Evolution ◽  
Just In Time ◽  
Mobile Code ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Code Mobility ◽  
Complex Forms ◽  
Cooperating Agents ◽  
Execution Tracing

Over the years, computer systems have evolved from centralized monolithic computing devices supporting static applications, into client-server environments that allow complex forms of distributed computing. Throughout this evolution, limited forms of code mobility have existed. The explosion in the use of the World Wide Web, coupled with the rapid evolution of the platform- independent programming languages, has promoted the use of mobile code and, at the same time, raised some important security issues. This chapter introduces mobile code technology and discusses the related security issues. The first part of the chapter deals with the need for mobile codes and the various methods of categorising them. One method of categorising the mobile code is based on code mobility. Different forms of code mobility, like code on demand, remote evaluation, and mobile agents, are explained in detail. The other method is based on the type of code distributed. Various types of codes, like source code, intermediate code, platform-dependent binary code, and just-in-time compilation, are explained. Mobile agents, as autonomously migrating software entities, present great challenges to the design and implementation of security mechanisms. The second part of this chapter deals with the security issues. These issues are broadly divided into code-related issues and host-related issues. Techniques, like sandboxing, code signing, and proof-carrying code, are widely applied to protect the hosts. Execution tracing, mobile cryptography, obfuscated code, and cooperating agents are used to protect the code from harmful agents. The security mechanisms, like language support for safety, OS level security, and safety policies, are discussed in the last section. In order to make the mobile code approach practical, it is essential to understand mobile code technology. Advanced and innovative solutions are to be developed to restrict the operations that mobile code can perform, but without unduly restricting its functionality. It is also necessary to develop formal, extremely easy-to-use safety measures.

Mobile Agent Authentication and Authorization in E-Commerce

2011 ◽  
pp. 2567-2573
Author(s):  
Sheng-Uei Guan
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Agent ◽  
Mobile Agents ◽  
Research Effort ◽  
The Internet ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Authentication And Authorization ◽  
Authentication Schemes ◽  
The One

With the increasing worldwide usage of the Internet, electronic commerce (e-commerce) has been catching on fast in a lot of businesses. As e-commerce booms, there comes a demand for a better system to manage and carry out transactions. This has led to the development of agent-based e-commerce. In this new approach, agents are employed on behalf of users to carry out various e-commerce activities. Although the tradeoff of employing mobile agents is still a contentious topic (Milojicic, 1999), using mobile agents in e-commerce attracts much research effort, as it may improve the potential of their applications in e-commerce. One advantage of using agents is that communication cost can be reduced. Agents traveling and transferring only the necessary information save the bandwidth and reduce the chances of network clogging. Also, users can let their agents travel asynchronously to their destinations and collect information or execute other applications while they can disconnect from the network (Wong, 1999). Although agent-based technology offers such advantages, the major factor that is holding people back from employing agents is still the security issues involved. On the one hand, hosts cannot trust incoming agents belonging to unknown owners, because malicious agents may launch attacks on the hosts and other agents. On the other hand, agents may also have concerns on the reliability of hosts and will be reluctant to expose their secrets to distrustful hosts. To build bilateral trust in an e-commerce environment, the authorization and authentication schemes for mobile agents should be well designed. Authentication checks the credentials of an agent before processing the agent’s requests. If the agent is found to be suspicious, the host may decide to deny its service requests. Authorization refers to the permissions granted for the agent to access whichever resource it requested. In our previous work, we have proposed a SAFER (Secure Agent Fabrication, Evolution & Roaming) architecture (Zhu, 2000), which aims to construct an open, dynamic and evolutionary agent system for e-commerce. We have already elaborated agent fabrication, evolution, and roaming in Guan (1999, 2001, 2002), Wang (2001), and Zhu (2001). This article gives an overview of the authentication and authorization issues on the basis of the SAFER architecture.

scholarly journals Towards a New Model to Secure IoT-based Smart Home Mobile Agents using Blockchain Technology

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 5441-5447
Author(s):  
B. E. Sabir ◽  
M. Youssfi ◽  
O. Bouattane ◽  
H. Allali
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Agents ◽  
Smart Home ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Blockchain Technology ◽  
Network Load ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Agent Migration ◽  
The Internet Of Things ◽  
Selection Of

The Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming an indispensable part of the actual Internet and continues to extend deeper into the daily lives of people, offering distributed and critical services. Mobile agents are widely used in the context of IoT and due to the possibility of transmitting their execution status from one device to another in an IoT network, they offer many advantages such as reducing network load, encapsulating protocols, exceeding network latency, etc. Also, Blockchain Technology is growing rapidly allowing for the addition of an approved security layer in many areas. Security issues related to mobile agent migration can be resolved with the use of Blockchain. This paper aims to demonstrate how Blockchain Technology can be used to secure mobile agents in the context of the IoT using Ethereum and a Smart Contract. The transactions within the Blockchain are used to detect the malevolent mobile agents that could infiltrate the IoT systems. The proposed model aims to provide a secure migration of mobile agents to ensure security and protect the IoT applications against malevolent agents. The case of a smart home with multiple applications is applied to verify the proposed solution. The model presented in this paper could be extended to a wider selection of IoT systems outside of the smart home.

A Secure and Trustworthy Framework for Mobile Agent-Based E-Marketplace with Digital Forensics and Security Protocols

2011 ◽  
pp. 344-362
Author(s):  
Qi Wei ◽  
Ahmed Patel
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Agent ◽  
Mobile Agents ◽  
Secure Communication ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Viable Systems ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Illegal Activities ◽  
Audit Trails ◽  
Search Information

Mobile agents raise security issues such as the protection of platform/host that runs the mobile agent against attacks which can harm or use its resources without permission, and another is the need for protection to guard mobile agents and their supporting systems against the malicious attacks from a variety of intervening sources that might alter information it carries and processes when it visits the hosts in its transactions itineraries. In this article, the authors propose a framework which includes safe, secure, trusted and auditable services, as well as forensic mechanisms to provide audit trails for digital evidence of transactions and protection against illegal activities. The proposed framework and protocols provide a secure communication for mobile agents when they move to different security environments to deal with e-marketplace activities such as search information, negotiation and payments. This article is concluded by highlighting and discussing further research work to build viable systems.

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