INTEGRATION OF SECURITY IN MOBILE AGENT SYSTEMS

Abstract

Protecting Mobile Agents against hosts is a key element of Mobile Agents Security. Security threats from a host/hosts to a mobile agent include masquerading, denial of service, eavesdropping, and alteration. In this thesis, methods have been studied to address mobile agent security issues; cryptographic techniques are reviewed including their advantages and limitations. This dissertation provides an overview of the range of threats faced by the designers of agent platforms and the developers of agent-based applications. The report also identifies generic security objectives, and a range of measures for countering the identified threats and fulfilling these security objectives. It is an attempt to secure mobile agents using standard cryptographic algorithms. i.e. using Data Encryption Standard , Digital Signature Algorithm, RSA using MD5 and Digital Certificate X.509. The project uses Aglets SDK as the mobile agent platform developed by IBM's Tokyo Research Lab for the development of secure data transfer. Aglet model is based on Java framework, making it platform independent. The Java policy files, security files and properties files are used to achieve the desired goal. These secure agents can be used for secure electronic