We witness an ongoing intensive research towards the specification and implementation of autonomic behaviors for the Future Internet. Important issues that need to be addressed in that context are related to diverse security aspects of the emerging autonomic network technologies. In this paper, we present our research on security in autonomic networks based on the GANA reference model. We present a number of concepts and show how security can be addressed on the architectural level in an autonomic network

The proliferation and integration of communication networks in social life has increased the need for trusted systems of advanced and intelligent capabilities. Future networks are calling for new ways to efficient management, operation and service provisioning. Autonomicity becomes an enabler for selfmanageability of future networks and therefore autonomic networking provides the necessary new paradigm for these networks to become manageable and scalable. Autonomic entities base their decision within a network on experience gathered and information exchanged. Trust management mechanisms can provide the necessary security framework in such an environment towards robust coherent autonomic networking. In this paper we present trust models and sketch a trust management architecture, applicable to complex future networking environments. We handle the special requirements set by autonomicity and try to strengthen the autonomic characteristics of the nodes as well as the robustness of service provisioning.