Abstract
Modern networks increasingly rely on attestation mechanisms to establish device trust based on trusted identity, proof of integrity, and freshness of that proof. While these mechanisms provide a strong cryptographic foundation, current implementations treat attestation as a protocol-local, point-in-time verification, resulting in unilateral, siloed, and binary trust decisions that do not scale well across complex, multi-protocol environments.
The proposal introduces an agent-driven, consensus-based framework for cross-protocol attestation and trust determination. The framework does not redefine attestation itself; instead, it defines a novel way to interpret, correlate, and enforce attestation-derived trust using autonomous agents distributed across network elements.
In the proposed system, each network element hosts a Local Trust Agent that consumes attestation evidence generated during protocol interactions. These agents independently assess trust, correlate trust signals across multiple protocols, and exchange signed trust assertions with peer agents over secure, mutually authenticated channels. High-impact trust decisions are reached through multi-agent consensus, rather than unilateral verification, ensuring resilience against false positives, transient failures, and compromised nodes.
By treating trust as a continuously evolving state rather than a static check, the framework enables adaptive and proportional enforcement across authentication, tunneling, policy propagation, routing, and other protocols. Devices may be allowed, restricted, de-preferred, or isolated based on collective trust posture and freshness, without requiring protocol redesign or centralized trust oracles.
The result is a generic, protocol-agnostic trust fabric that transforms attestation from a static security mechanism into a distributed, resilient, and intelligent trust system. This approach improves consistency, robustness, and operational safety in modern networks while remaining compatible with existing attestation technologies and networking protocols.
In summary, attestation proves integrity; agent-driven consensus turns that proof into coordinated, cross-protocol trust decisions.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
M M, Niranjan, "AGENT-DRIVEN CONSENSUS-BASED CROSS-PROTOCOL ATTESTATION FRAMEWORK", Technical Disclosure Commons, (May 27, 2026)
https://www.tdcommons.org/dpubs_series/10258