C14 Layer 4 - Orchestration & Ecosystem

Secure Multi-Agent Protocols

Multi-agent message envelopes with signature, nonce, version, expiry. Replay attacks fail; cross-agent calls are subject to the same policy boundary as tool calls.

Why

Multi-agent systems increase complexity and attack surface. If agents exchange free-form text, you get ambiguity, spoofing, and privilege escalation.

What

A strict protocol envelope that provides: authenticated sender identity
canonical serialization
schema validation
payload signatures
nonce replay protection
capability negotiation and versioning

How

define a stable envelope schema
reject messages without valid signature/nonce/schema
include capability negotiation to prevent unsafe downgrades
treat all agent outputs as untrusted until validated

Evidence

schema validation rejects
signature verification logs
replay attack attempts detected

Failure modes

free-text inter-agent communication
no sender verification
protocol version drift without compatibility tests

NIST AI RMF alignment

C14 maps to MANAGE. See the framework paper for the specific subcontrol mappings.

ISO/IEC alignment

C14 maps to ISO/IEC 27001. Typical evidence: see the Evidence section above.