Title: Secure mobile agent environments: modelling role assignments

Authors: Christos K. Georgiadis, Dimitrios Baltatzis, George Pangalos

Addresses: Department of Applied Informatics, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki 54006, Greece. ' Faculty of Technology, Informatics Laboratory, Computers Division, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 54006, Greece. ' Faculty of Technology, Informatics Laboratory, Computers Division, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 54006, Greece

Abstract: This article exploits the idea of using the role-based access control model for the mobile agent authorisation problem. In our approach, when an agent migrates to a specific platform, the host assigns it a role from the local role hierarchy. The assignment is based on role decomposition that every host is eligible to perform according to a set of well-established rules. We analyse the matching procedure and we demonstrate a role management system application which is capable to compare roles and thus to assign local roles to upcoming agent roles. Moreover, we present our first efforts to model mobile agent behaviour using Coloured Petri-Nets, a powerful modelling language for systems in which communication and resource distribution play a very important role.

Keywords: authorisation; CP-nets; coloured Petri nets; mobile agents; RBAC; role-based access control; multi-agent systems; MAS; agent-based systems; modelling; role assignments; role management; electronic security.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESDF.2008.020943

International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics, 2008 Vol.1 No.3, pp.249 - 267

Published online: 25 Oct 2008 *

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