Employing mobile agents to secure local networks

Abstract

We present a hybrid scheme based on mobile agents, which automates the task of network monitoring and applies security policies. The scheme consists of a policy manager agent, responsible for managing security policies and responding to network attacks. This task is assisted by a variety of mobile agents running on a mobile agent platform, which help applying configurations locally. The agents developed fall into two main categories. These are situated agents and mobile agents. All agents collaborate to achieve the same goal; enhance the security of their network. Situated agents are launched via the policy manager operating on the network nodes continuously. Mobile agents are sent carrying the proper instructions to reconfigure the jeopardized hosts. The policy manager and the mobile agents are enhanced with reasoning capabilities in the form of a rule-based system. Such a system has been developed and tested with encouraging results.