Internet Worm Propagation Model Using Centrality Theory

Abstract

. The emergence of various Internet worms, including the stand-alone Code Red worm that caused a distributed denial of service (DDoS), has prompted many studies on their propagation speed to minimize potential damages. Many studies, however, assume the same probabilities for initially infected nodes to infect each node during their propagation, which do not reflect accurate Internet worm propagation modelling. Thus, this paper analyzes how Internet worm propagation speed varies according to the number of vulnerable hosts directly connected to infected hosts as well as the link costs between infected and vulnerable hosts. A mathematical model based on centrality theory is proposed to analyze and simulate the effects of degree centrality values and closeness centrality values representing the connectivity of nodes in a large-scale network environment on Internet worm propagation speed.