A Threats And Trusted Countermeasures, Using Security Protocol in the Agent Space
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Date
2008-04
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Mobile agent technology is a new paradigm of distributed computing, that models well some of
services available in the net than other distributed computing approaches. Although this
technology has generated considerable excitement in the research community, it has not been
translated into a significant number of real-world applications due to a new dimensionality of
security problems it brings along with it.
Mobile agents are programs that can autonomously migrate from nodes to nodes in a computer
network and perform a computation on the behalf of the user. It has a unique ability to transport
itself from one system in a network to another. They work in conjunction with a mobile agent
platform which provides appropriate execution environment for the mobile agent. This platform
needs to be available at each potential host willing to entertain a visiting mobile agent. In this
thesis all the background information on the concept of mobile agent is given.
The security problem of mobile agent technology is of multidimensional. In this thesis the issue
of hostile host towards a visiting agent is given due diligence: Malicious host problem. It is one
of the most difficult problems to address. Threats emanating from malicious hosts are identified
and a modified mobile agent computing model is proposed to prevent some of the threats. The
proposed system design consists of components that provide support to the mobile agent while it
is touring hosts in the agent space. It also protects the confidentiality and integrity of parts of the
mobile agent.
Keywords: agents, mobile agents, malicious host problem, trusted nodes
Description
Keywords
Agents, Mobile agents, Malicious host problem, Trusted nodes