Agents permit one to dynamically extend the computational capabilities of a remote computer.
Agents can be particularly useful in providing a scalable paradigm to protect distributed systems. Agents can be dispatched to remote resources to monitor and analyze their activities and detect attacks. Agents could execute local learning algorithms to classify and abstract patterns of activities and identify new forms of attacks. They could share this learning with other agents and then apply the results to monitor and detect these new forms of attacks. A small group of security staff could dispatch agents to protect a system of virtually unlimited size.