Modeling Propagation Dynamics of Bluetooth Worms

Abstract

The growing popularity of mobile devices in the last few years has made them attractive to virus and worm writers. One communication channel exploited by mobile malware is the Bluetooth interface. In this paper, we present a detailed analytical model that characterizes the propagation dynamics of Bluetooth worms. Our model captures not only the behavior of the Bluetooth protocol but also the impact of mobility patterns on the Bluetooth worm propagation. Validation experiments against a detailed discrete-event Bluetooth worm simulator reveal that our model predicts the propagation dynamics of Bluetooth worms with high accuracy.