Incorporating security requirements into communication protocols in multi-agent software systems

A communication protocol is a fundamental component of a multi-agent system. The security requirements for a communication protocol should be articulated during the early stages of software development. However, there is no formal way provided for software developers to find out what makes a communication protocol secure and what are secure designs. In this paper we propose a method that defines security requirements, bridges security requirement analysis with security design, and integrates the security techniques into a communication protocol to fulfill the security requirements.