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Evaluating the security of mobile agent platforms

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Abstract

Mobility of software agents requires additional security measures. While the theoretical aspects of mobile agent security have been widely studied, there are few studies about the security levels of current agent platforms. In this paper, test cases are proposed to assess agent platform security. These tests focus on malicious agents trying to attack other agents or the agency. Currently, they have been carried out for two agent platforms: JADE and SeMoA. These tests show which of the known theoretical security problems are relevant in practice. Furthermore, they reveal how these problems are addressed by the respective platform and what security flaws are present.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fraunhofer Institute for Information and Data Processing, Fraunhoferstraße 1, 76131, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Axel Bürkle, Alice Hertel, Wilmuth Müller & Martin Wieser

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  1. Axel Bürkle
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  2. Alice Hertel
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  3. Wilmuth Müller
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  4. Martin Wieser
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Correspondence to Axel Bürkle.

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Bürkle, A., Hertel, A., Müller, W. et al. Evaluating the security of mobile agent platforms. Auton Agent Multi-Agent Syst 18, 295–311 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10458-008-9043-z

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