Mobile Agents on Electronic Markets Opportunities, Risks and Agent Protection

In this paper we characterize the different tasks mobile agents can perform for their users on electronic markets. These tasks imply various risks that have to be addressed by protection mechanisms, not only to protect the market servers from malicious agents, but also to prevent the mobile agents from malicious hosts. To achieve the latter is quite difficult, because in order to execute the agent, the host has to read the agent’s code and data. We perform a study of different approaches to protect mobile agents, take a detailed look at their pros and cons and examine possible application fields on electronic markets for each of the approaches. Finally, we use one of the presented approaches and develop an architecture for an electronic market in which security and anonymity of market participants using mobile agents is of major concern.