A Novel Free-Roaming Mobile Agent Security Mechanism by Trusted Computing Technology

Protecting data of free-roaming mobile agents has drawn much attention in recent years. But no perfect solution has ever been proposed. Many of the solutions are vulnerable by colluded truncation attacks. In this study we analyze available methods, and design a novel mechanism by cooperation between two kinds of agents- Task Agent and Secondary Agent. It also exploits new functionalities and mechanism provided by the trusted computing technology. Task Agent moves freely in the net to complete some task. Secondary Agent moves to an anonymous third party who has trusted platform module on it, then uses the data computed by Task Agent to extend some platform configuration register in the trusted platform module irrevocably. The special property of platform configuration register and the integrity reporting method of the trusting platform module guarantee this mechanismpsilas security. The novel mechanism can effectively detect attacks included colluded truncation attack and protect the data carried by mobile agent.