Title: Dynamic security framework for mobile agent systems: specification, verification and enforcement

Authors: Monia Loulou, Mohamed Jmaiel, Mohamed Mosbah

Addresses: ReDCAD Laboratory, National School of Engineers of Sfax, University of Sfax, B.P. 1173, 3038 Sfax, Tunisia; LaBRI Laboratory, UMR CNRS 5800 Bordeaux, France. ' ReDCAD Laboratory, National School of Engineers of Sfax, University of Sfax, B.P. 1173, 3038 Sfax, Tunisia. ' LaBRI Laboratory, UMR CNRS 5800 Bordeaux, France

Abstract: We define in this paper, a formal conceptual model, which presents the most fundamental concepts for mobile agent systems and unifies their representation and defines the relations between them. On this base, we propose a formal security framework which consists of three basic frameworks. The specification framework proposes a generic definition of security policies for the entities of mobile agent systems. The verification framework checks the intra-policy consistency. The reconfiguration framework describes how to reconfigure security policies and to maintain their consistency. Finally, we examine this theoretical work by defining an operational framework for dynamic enforcement of security policies.

Keywords: mobile agent systems; security policies; formal specification; verification; reconfiguration; enforcement; mobile agents; agent-based systems; multi-agent systems; MAS.

DOI: 10.1504/IJICS.2009.031043

International Journal of Information and Computer Security, 2009 Vol.3 No.3/4, pp.321 - 336

Published online: 18 Jan 2010 *

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