A MAS security framework implementing reputation based policies and owners access control

Multi-agent systems expose users to risks related to lack of knowledge above interacting users. Such systems should provide tools to protect their own resources from illegal accesses by unauthorized users. This paper describes a security framework for multi-agent systems preventing a trusted agent to interact with malicious agents and granting agent and platform resources. This feature is obtained adding an access control mechanism that joins the benefits of credential based access control, role based access control and mandatory access control. Authorizations and access control policies are set by XML based policy files. A case study on a distributed document retrieval system is also illustrated.