A Secure Communication Framework for Mobile Agents

Abstract

Communication, a fundamental concept in computing, allows two pieces of software to interact and to exchange information. It is an important aspect of mobile agent systems because mobile agents generally need to coordinate their activities through some type of communication. Using mobile agent technologies provides potential benefits to distributed applications; however, an agent’s ability to move introduces significant security risks. Consequently, a mobile agent system should provide a safe and secure communication infrastructure along with other security management and maintenance activities. This paper describes the communication framework of a new mobile agent platform, Secure Mobile Agent Platform (SECMAP) that provides mobile agents a flexible and secure communication environment with both synchronous and asynchronous messaging facilities.