On the Immunization of Small Computer Networks

Abstract

Abstract. As complex computer networks have become integral to our life, it has become important to create effective and efficient defenses against computer viruses. To model these viruses and networks, a computer network can be treated as a graph of nodes and edges. For small graphs, we can use centrality measures to identify which nodes to immunize first. We examine an existing immunization scheme based on the computation of a bound for the decay of a virus and compare it to some proposed schemes on random graphs. We observe that an immunization scheme based on the organization of a graph can outperform a greedy scheme. We also observe that the computation of the virus decay bound does not correlate in the expected way with the ability of the virus to infect an entire network.

Modelling Artificial Immunization Processes to Counter Cyberthreats

“…The authors of [11] proposed a simulation of virus behavior in a network and developed an immunization algorithm for it. The approach to immunization considered in this work is also probabilistic, since the process of restoring the graph (transition from an infected state to a susceptible one) also has a given probability.…”

“…The data focus only on countering computer viruses and do not take into account the peculiarities of cyber threats in complex systems. It should be noted that this approach from paper [11] can be used, but it should be complemented by proposals for an immunization strategy that would take into account the type of attack which is being carried out.…”