Mobile Agent Data Integrity via Cryptographic Checksum Chain
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for protecting mobile agents against malicious servers are inadequate, particularly in preventing cut-and-paste attacks where intermediate servers can modify or tamper with data containers, making it difficult for the original server to detect unauthorized changes.
Innovation Solution
A method involving a unique initialization number encoded with the first server's private key, which is used to compute successive checksums across servers, ensuring data integrity by maintaining a signature that cannot be erased, thus preventing malicious alterations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If mobile agents are allowed to migrate freely between servers to enable autonomous execution and load balancing, then system flexibility and productivity are improved, but security against malicious servers deteriorates as agents become vulnerable to tampering and cut-and-paste attacks
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-computing checksums at each server before the mobile agent leaves. Each server computes a checksum of the data container and attaches it to the agent's itinerary before migration. This preliminary computation ensures that any subsequent tampering can be detected when the checksum is verified at the destination server or by the agent owner, thus maintaining data integrity while preserving agent mobility.
2Reliability
If existing protection methods are used against malicious servers, then some level of security is provided, but cut-and-paste attacks cannot be detected as data containers can be modified without detection
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements feedback by having the mobile agent carry checksums computed at each server along its migration path. When the agent returns to the original server or when verified by the agent owner, these checksums are checked against the current state of the data container. This feedback mechanism enables detection of any tampering that occurred during migration, as modified data will produce different checksums, thus preventing undetectable cut-and-paste attacks.
3Loss of information
If data containers are protected with encryption to prevent unauthorized access, then confidentiality is improved, but the ability to detect modifications deteriorates as encrypted data cannot be easily verified for integrity
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies segmentation by separating the confidentiality protection (encryption of data container) from the integrity verification (checksum computation). The checksum is computed over the encrypted data or over a hash of the encrypted data, allowing independent verification of integrity without requiring decryption. This segmentation enables both confidentiality to be maintained through encryption and integrity to be verified through checksum comparison, resolving the contradiction between these two security requirements.
Data Source
AI summary
The present description refers to a method for securing processing of an order by a mobile agent from a first server (So) within a network system with a plurality of servers (So, S1, . . . ,Sn), at least a number of which the mobile agent has to pass according to an appropriate succession, wherein each of the plurality of servers has a pair of a public key (KSo, . . . ,KSi, . . . , KSn) and a private key (PKSo, . . . ,PKSi, . . . , PKSn) associated therewith, respectively, the method comprising, starting from any one of the number of servers the mobile agent has to pass, called herein the i'th server at least the steps of receiving the mobile agent which has been prepared by the first server by choosing a unique number (r0) and assigning it to the mobile agent, encoding the chosen unique number (r0) with the private key (PKSo) of the first server (So), thus forming an agent specific initialisation number (Co) as basis for a sequence of checksums (Co, . . . ,Ci, . . . ,Cn) to be computed successively by the number of servers (So, S1, . . ., Sn), sending the mobile agent together with its initialisation number (Co) on its route through the network system for processing the order passing thereby the number of servers (So, S1, . . . ,Sn) successively, and initiating each server (S1, . . . ,Sn) from which the mobile agent intends to take data with it when passing that server to encode the initialisation number (Co) together with the data with the respective server's private key (PKS1, . . . ,PKSi, . . . , PKSn) and to compute therewith a new server specific checksum (C1, . . . ,Ci, . . . ,Cn) using the public key (KSo) of the first server (So) and the checksum (Co, . . . ,Ci, . . . ,Cn−1) computed by the server (So, . . . ,Sn−1) right before in the succession.