A platform independent approach for Mobile Agents to monitor Network Vulnerabilities

Mobile Agents are an effective choice for many research and application areas due to several reasons, including improvements in latency and bandwidth of client-server applications, reducing network load and threat assessment. Intrusion Detection Systems and Vulnerability assessment systems are used to monitor network traffic, to measure and prioritize the risks associated with network and host based systems. These systems monitor suspicious activities and alert the system or network administrator. All inbound and outbound traffic can be monitored either in whole network or individual host. Amalgamating two technologies, i.e. Mobile agents and Network security systems will provide many benefits to the administrators where agents will autonomously roam and assess the network and the system. Though many Agent models are available to provide agent management services, but they are mostly server/platform dependent. These models may fail when intended host is to be targeted for its security assessment and the supporting compatible environment, i.e. server, is not available there. This paper surveys some server dependent agent models, implements and tests its results. It also points out the flaws of different server dependent agent models. We also propose and implement a Server-independent Agent Architecture to monitor intrusion detection and check the weaknesses of target host that normally attacker exploits to harm the network.