A security oriented approach in the development of multiagent systems : applied to the management of the health and social care needs of older people in England.

摘要

Security can play an important role in the development of some multi agentudsystems. However, a careful analysis of software development processes indicatesudthat the definition of security requirements is, usually, considered after the design ofudthe system. This approach, usually, leads to problems, such as conflicts betweenudsecurity and functional requirements, which can translate into securityudvulnerabilities. As a result, the integration of security issues in agent orientedudsoftware engineering methodologies has been identified as an important issue.udNevertheless, developers of agent oriented software engineering methodologies haveudmainly neglected security engineering and in fact very little evidence has beenudreported on work that integrates security issues into the development stages of agentudoriented software engineering methodologies.udThis thesis advances the current state of the art In agent oriented softwareudengineering in many ways. It identifies problems associated with the integration ofudsecurity and software engineering and proposes a set of minimum requirements that audsecurity oriented process should demonstrate. It extends the concepts and theuddevelopment process of the Tropos methodology with respect to security to allowuddevelopers, even those with minimum security knowledge, to identify desiredudsecurity requirements for their multi agent systems, reason about them, and as a resultuddevelop a system that satisfies its security requirements. In doing so, this researchudhas developed (1) an analysis technique to enable developers to select amongstudalternative architectural styles using as criteria the security requirements of theudsystem, (2) a pattern language consisting of security patterns for multi agent systems,udand (3) a scenario-based technique that allows developers to test the reaction of theudsystem to potential attacks.udThe applicability of the approach is demonstrated by employing it in theuddevelopment of the electronic single assessment process (eSAP) system, a real-lifeudcase study that provided the initial motivation for this research.