D-MUTRA: DLT-based MUTual Remote Attestation for Multi-Agent Systems

2026-08-03

AI Summary

This work addresses the limitations of existing remote attestation mechanisms, which rely on centralized verifiers and only ensure integrity during system boot, thereby failing to protect multi-agent systems during runtime. To overcome this, the paper proposes D-MUTRA, a novel framework that integrates mutual trust-based remote attestation with blockchain technology to establish a fully software-based, decentralized, and continuous verification mechanism. In D-MUTRA, agents mutually act as both attesters and verifiers during execution, leveraging a private Ethereum network (Hyperledger Besu), smart contracts, and a lightweight Security-as-a-Service module to enable transparent and auditable integrity checks. Evaluated on a ROS/Gazebo robotic swarm, the framework effectively detects malicious tampering, supports large-scale deployment, and incurs negligible performance overhead.

Abstract

Multi-agent systems (MAS) comprise autonomous software agents that collaborate to perform complex tasks in critical cyber-physical domains, including multi-robot coordination and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). In such distributed environments, a compromised agent may execute modified software while appearing trustworthy, causing other agents to act on false information and corrupting the mission. Agents must therefore establish and maintain mutual trust throughout operation. Remote attestation (RA) is a well-established technique for this purpose, enabling a remote verifier to assess the integrity of a potentially compromised prover device. However, conventional RA approaches face significant limitations in MAS: integrity guarantees are restricted to boot or application-load time, designs rely on centralized trusted verifiers or security hardware, and attestation records lack transparency and auditability. To address these limitations, this paper presents D-MUTRA, a blockchain-based framework that introduces a mutual RA protocol in which agents measure their runtime integrity while verifying that of their peers, acting as both prover and verifier. The framework operates entirely in software and relies on two components: a Security-as-a-Service that instruments agents with lightweight measurement and verification capabilities, and a smart contract that coordinates the attestation protocol in a decentralized and transparent manner. We implement a proof-of-concept on a private Ethereum blockchain using Hyperledger Besu and evaluate it in a swarm robotics scenario built with Robot Operating System (ROS) and the Gazebo simulator. Results show that D-MUTRA enables agents to continuously attest one another, detects malicious software modifications, and scales to large deployments with negligible overhead on protected applications.

Problem

• multi-agent systems
• remote attestation
• runtime integrity
• trust establishment
• software verification

Innovation

• blockchain-based remote attestation
• mutual trust
• runtime integrity
• decentralized verification
• multi-agent systems