A Solution To The Problem Of Host Security Of Java Based Mobile Agent System

Mobile agent, whose security problem is one of the most important problems, is a new distributed network-computing mode. In this paper, a method is put forward to solve the host security problem of the Java based Mobile Agent system. This method is to ensure the host security through the protection of resource and the validity of agent. It is composed of two aspects: first, it uses the Java sandbox to control the access of host resource, thus it can prevent the host resource from being accessed by agents without authority; second, it adopts a authentication based mobile agent transfer protocol to control the transfer of agents in order to refuse the transfer request of invalid agent. Thus, it can guarantee that the agent running in the host is valid, in other words, it avoids performing the illegal agent in the host. Further more, it can be sure that the agent status data haven't been tampered or replaced in the course of transfer. Resource policy can be set ,up flexible on the basis of code base in this method. And the method can prevent the resend attack of agent.