Mobile agent

Definition
A mobile agent refer to

{{Quote|autonomous software entities that can halt themselves, ship themselves to another agent-enabled host on the network, and continue execution, deciding where to go and what to do along the way. Mobile agents are goal-oriented, can communicate with other agents, and can continue to operate even after the machine that launched them has been removed from the network.

Overview
The mobile agent computing paradigm raises several privacy and security concerns, which clearly are one of the main obstacles to the widespread use and adaptation of this new technology. Mobile agents applications are currently being developed by industry, government, and academia for use in such areas as telecommunications systems, personal digital assistants, information management, online auctions, service brokering, contract negotiation, air traffic control, parallel processing, and computer simulation.

Mobile agent security issues include: authentication, identification, secure messaging, certification, trusted third parties, non-repudiation, and resource control. Mobile agent frameworks must be able to counter new threats as agent hosts must be protected from malicious agents, agents must be protected from malicious hosts, and agents must be protected from malicious agents. This project is directed towards evaluating existing mobile agent security mechanisms and developing new countermeasures for mobile agent security threats.

Source

 * Mobile Agent Systems (full-text).