Proposed Protocol for State Tampering Mobile Agents Security

Abstract

Several advantages have been identified in using mobile agents in distributed systems .The most frequently advantages include: reduction of network load ,decrease in communication latency, dynamic adoption and better support for mobile devices with intermittent connection .However the benefits offered have not been sufficient to simulate their wide spread deployment, the main reason is their inherent security risks. Security issues consist of protecting the agent platform and protecting the mobile agent. The toughest task is protecting the mobile agent, which is subject to attacks from the platform it is operating on. This paper introduces a protocol based on publicly verified signature chain, digital envelope and centralized Trusted Third Party (TTP) scheme that allows detection of attacks against code, state and execution flow of mobile agents.