Although security plays an important role in the development of multiagent systems, a careful analysis of software development processes shows that the definition of security requirements is, usually, considered after the design of the system. One of the reasons is the fact that agent oriented software engineering methodologies have not integrated security concerns throughout their developing stages. The integration of security concerns during the whole range of the development stages can help towards the development of more secure multiagent systems. In this paper we introduce extensions to the Tropos methodology to enable it to model security concerns throughout the whole development process. A description of the new concepts and modelling activities is given along with a discussion on how these concepts and modelling activities are integrated to the current stages of Tropos. A real life case study from the health and social care sector is used to illustrate the approach.

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Secure tropos: a security-oriented extension of the tropos methodology

The migration to wireless network from wired network has been a global trend in the past few decades. The mobility and scalability brought by wireless network made it possible in many applications. Among all the contemporary wireless networks, Mobile Ad hoc NETwork (MANET) is one of the most important and unique applications. On the contrary to traditional network architecture, MANET does not require a fixed network infrastructure; every single node works as both a transmitter and a receiver. Nodes communicate directly with each other when they are both within the same communication range. Otherwise, they rely on their neighbors to relay messages. The self-configuring ability of nodes in MANET made it popular among critical mission applications like military use or emergency recovery. However, the open medium and wide distribution of nodes make MANET vulnerable to malicious attackers. In this case, it is crucial to develop efficient intrusion-detection mechanisms to protect MANET from attacks. With the improvements of the technology and cut in hardware costs, we are witnessing a current trend of expanding MANETs into industrial applications. To adjust to such trend, we strongly believe that it is vital to address its potential security issues. In this paper, we propose and implement a new intrusion-detection system named Enhanced Adaptive ACKnowledgment (EAACK) specially designed for MANETs. Compared to contemporary approaches, EAACK demonstrates higher malicious-behavior-detection rates in certain circumstances while does not greatly affect the network performances.

EAACK—A Secure Intrusion-Detection System for MANETs

The present invention provides a generic distributed command, control, and communication framework that allows computer systems, devices, and operational personnel to interact with the network as a unified entity. The present invention provides these services by building upon a core communication architecture that permits local or remote execution of mobile program code, static execution of program code, flexible communication formats, self-healing network techniques, and expansion by the addition of new system modules, software handlers, or mobile autonomous agents.

Computer security and management system

Privacy homomorphisms (PHs) are encryption transformations mapping a set of operations on cleartext to another set of operations on ciphertext. If addition is one of the ciphertext operations, then it has been shown that a PH is insecure against a chosen-cleartext attack. Thus, a PH allowing full arithmetic on encrypted data can be at best secure against known-cleartext attacks. We present one such PH (none was known so far) which can be proven secure against known-cleartext attacks, as long as the ciphertext space is much larger than the cleartext space. Some applications to delegation of sensitive computing and data and to e-gambling are briefly outlined.

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A Provably Secure Additive and Multiplicative Privacy Homomorphism

Color, texture and shape information have been the primitive image descriptors in content based image retrieval systems. This paper presents a novel framework for combining all the three i.e. color, texture and shape information, and achieve higher retrieval efficiency. The image is partitioned into non- overlapping tiles of equal size. The color moments and moments on Gabor filter responses of these tiles serve as local descriptors of color and texture respectively. This local information is captured for two resolutions and two grid layouts that provide different details of the same image. An integrated matching scheme, based on most similar highest priority (MSHP) principle and the adjacency matrix of a bipartite graph formed using the tiles of query and target image, is provided for matching the images. Shape information is captured in terms of edge images computed using gradient vector flow fields. Invariant moments are then used to record the shape features. The combination of the color, texture and shape features provide a robust feature set for image retrieval. The experimental results demonstrate the efficacy of the method.

Content Based Image Retrieval Using Color, Texture and Shape Features

: Mobile agent technology offers a new computing paradigm in which a program, in the form of a software agent, can suspend its execution on a host computer, transfer itself to another agent-enabled host on the network, and resume execution on the new host. The use of mobile code has a long history dating back to the use of remote job entry systems in the 1960's. Today's agent incarnations can be characterized in a number of ways ranging from simple distributed objects to highly organized software with embedded intelligence. As the sophistication of mobile software has increased over time, so too have the associated threats to security. This report provides an overview of the range of threats facing the designers of agent platforms and the developers of agent-based applications. The report also identifies generic security objectives, and a range of measure for countering the identified threats and fulfilling these security objectives.

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Mobile Agent Security

Numerous schemes have been proposed for secure routing and intrusion detection for ad hoc networks. Yet, little work exists in actually implementing such schemes on small handheld devices. In this paper, we present a proof-of-concept implementation of a secure routing protocol based on AODV over IPv6, further reinforced by a routing protocol independent intrusion detection system (IDS) for ad hoc networks. Security features in the routing protocol include mechanisms for nonrepudiation and authentication, without relying on the availability of a certificate authority (CA) or a key distribution center (KDC). We present the design and implementation details of our system, the practical considerations involved, and how these mechanisms can be used to detect and thwart malicious attacks. We discuss several scenarios where the secure routing and intrusion detection mechanisms isolate and deny network resources to nodes deemed malicious. We also discuss shortcomings in our approach, and conclude with lessons learned and ideas for future work

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Secure Routing and Intrusion Detection in Ad Hoc Networks

Mobile agent technology offers a new computing paradigm in which a program, in the form of a software agent, can suspend its execution on a host computer, transfer itself to another agent-enabled host on the network, and resume execution on the new host. The use of mobile code has a long history dating back to the use of remote job entry systems in the 1960's. Today's agent incarnations can be characterized in a number of ways ranging from simple distributed objects to highly organized software with embedded intelligence. As the sophistication of mobile software has increased over time, so too have the associated threats to security. This report provides an overview of the range of threats facing the designers of agent platforms and the developers of agentbased applications. The report also identifies generic security objectives, and a range of measures for countering the identified threats and fulfilling these security objectives.

http://all.net/books/standards/NIST-CSRC/csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-19/sp800-19.pdf

NIST Special Publication 800-19 – Mobile Agent Security

interfaces Low Unpredictability Medium Knowledge sharing Medium Table 3: Architecture Research Area Ratings Research Objective 3: Use MA technology to overcome shortcomings of current IDS architectures. Research Area Rating Asynchronous execution and autonomy Medium Structure and composition High Adapting dynamically Medium Operating in a heterogeneous environments Low Robust and fault-tolerant behavior High Table 4: Architecture Research Area Ratings

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Applying Mobile Agents to Intrusion Detection and Response

The proliferation of mobile handheld devices, such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) andtablet computers, within the workplace is expanding rapidly. While providing productivity benefits, theability of these devices to store and transmit corporate information through both wired and wirelessnetworks poses potential risks to an organization’s security. This paper describes an approach to assigningand enforcing an organization’s security policy on handheld devices. The approach relies on the deviceholding a valid policy certificate, obtained through synchronization with a user’s desktop computer,organizational server, or other means, before conducting any security-sensitive operations. The paperdescribes a proof-of-concept implementation of the policy certificate issuing tool, policy specificationlanguage, certificate representation, and enforcement mechanisms that were used to demonstrate thisapproach, and discusses the associated benefits and drawbacks

Tom Karygiannis

Papers

Mobile Agent Security

Secure Routing and Intrusion Detection in Ad Hoc Networks

NIST Special Publication 800-19 – Mobile Agent Security

Applying Mobile Agents to Intrusion Detection and Response

Assigning and Enforcing Security Policies on Handheld Devices