Mobile Agents Security Protocols

Mobile agents are expected to run in partially unknown and untrustworthy environments. They transport from one host to another host through insecure channels and may execute on non-trusted hosts. Thus, they are vulnerable to direct security attacks of intruders and non-trusted hosts. The security of information the agents collect is a fundamental requirement for a trusted implementation of electronic business applications and trade negotiations. This chapter discusses the security protocols presented in the literature that aim to secure the data mobile agents gather while searching the Internet, and identifies the security flaws revealed in the protocols. The protocols are analyzed with respect to the security properties, and the security flaws are identified. Two recent promising protocols that fulfill the various security properties are described. The chapter also introduces common notations used in describing security protocols and describes the security properties of the data that mobile agents gather.