A mobile agent system could be attacked by malicious agents, platforms and third parties. Mobile agents simply offer greater opportunities for abuse and misuse, which broadens the scale of threats significantly. In addition, since mobile agents have some unique characteristics such as their mobility, security problems have become more complicated in these systems. These security problems have become a bottleneck in the development and maintenance of mobile agent systems, especially in security sensitive applications such as electronic commerce. This book introduces the concept and structure of mobile agent systems and discusses various attacks and countermeasures. The emphasis is on the formal modeling and analysis of secure mobile agent systems and their applications.
Author(s): Jeffrey J. P. Tsai, Lu Ma
Series: Series in electrical and computer engineering 5
Publisher: Imperial College Press
Year: 2006
Language: English
Pages: 214
City: London; Hackensack, NJ
Contents......Page 10
Preface......Page 8
1.1 Background......Page 14
2.1 Components of a Mobile Agent System......Page 18
2.2 Characteristics and Advantages of a Mobile Agent System......Page 19
3 Attacks and Countermeasures of Software System Security......Page 23
3.1 General Security Objectives......Page 24
3.2.1 Attacks against availability......Page 27
3.2.2 Attacks against confidentiality......Page 28
3.2.3 Attacks against integrity......Page 30
3.2.4 Attacks against miscellaneous security objectives......Page 31
3.3.1 Authentication......Page 32
3.3.2 Access control......Page 34
3.3.3 Audit and intrusion detection......Page 39
3.3.4 Cryptography......Page 41
3.3.5 Firewall......Page 45
3.3.6 Anti-virus software......Page 47
4.1.1.1 Possible attacks to a mobile agent......Page 50
4.1.1.2 Possible attacks to a mobile agent platform......Page 53
4.1.2 Security requirements for a secure mobile agent system......Page 54
4.2.1 Existing mobile agent systems......Page 57
4.2.2 Security research......Page 64
4.2.2.1 Security measures for a mobile agent platform......Page 66
4.2.2.2 Security measures for a mobile agent......Page 69
4.2.3 Mobility modeling......Page 72
4.2.4 Conclusions......Page 74
5 A New Formal Model - Extended Elementary Object System (EEOS)......Page 76
5.1 Object-Oriented Technology and Petri Nets......Page 77
5.2 Elementary Object System (EOS)......Page 78
5.3.1 Requirements of a formal method for mobile agent system modeling......Page 81
5.3.2.2 Multiple layers......Page 83
5.3.2.3 Token pool......Page 84
5.3.2.4 Internal places external places and internal transitions external transitions......Page 85
5.3.2.5 Two new arcs......Page 87
5.3.2.6 Extended interaction relation......Page 90
5.3.3 Formal specification of Extended Elementary Object System......Page 91
6.1 Structure of a Mobile Agent System......Page 93
6.1.1 Mobile agent platform......Page 95
6.1.1.1 Functionalities and components of a mobile agent platform......Page 96
6.1.1.2 EEOS model of a mobile agent platform......Page 97
6.1.2 Trust server......Page 105
6.1.3.1 Functionalities and components of a mobile agent......Page 111
6.1.3.2 EEOS model......Page 112
6.2.1 Dynamic connection......Page 117
6.2.2.1 Communication contents......Page 120
6.2.2.2 Synchronous and asynchronous communications......Page 122
6.3.1 Strong mobility......Page 126
6.3.2 Weak mobility......Page 131
6.3.3 Discussion about weak mobility and strong mobility......Page 132
6.4 Security in a Mobile Agent System......Page 134
6.4.1 Secure mobile agent transfer......Page 135
6.4.1.1 Formalization of the secure mobile agent transfer......Page 138
6.4.2 Mutual authentication between a mobile agent and a mobile agent platform......Page 141
6.4.3.1 Authorization expression method......Page 144
6.4.3.2 Authorization policy......Page 147
6.4.3.3 Authorization maintenance......Page 151
6.4.4 Data security and action security......Page 152
6.4.4.1 Data security......Page 153
6.4.4.2 Action security......Page 154
7 Translating the EEOS Model to Colored Petri Net Model......Page 159
7.1.1 Object net tokens......Page 160
7.1.2 Special tokens......Page 162
7.2 Dynamic Connection......Page 163
7.3.2 Extended interaction relation......Page 165
7.4 Complicated Communication......Page 166
8 Simulation and Analysis of the Extended Elementary Object System Model of a Secure Mobile Agent System......Page 168
8.2 Boundedness......Page 172
8.4 Concurrency......Page 174
8.5 Security......Page 175
9.2 EEOS Model......Page 179
9.3 Synchronous Firing Mechanism in the Case Study......Page 181
9.4 Design/CPN Model and Experiment Results......Page 183
10.1.1 ABEAS - agent based e-auctioning system......Page 187
10.1.1.2 The agent platform in ABEAS......Page 189
10.1.2 Modeling requirements of ABEAS......Page 190
10.2.1 The e-broker agent......Page 191
10.2.2 The modified trust server......Page 192
11 Conclusion......Page 194
Bibliography......Page 196
Index......Page 212
