General worm propagation model forwireless ad hoc networks

The popularity of wireless communication networks makes them an attractive target to the creators of worms and other malicious code. Indeed, recently a number of worms designed specifically to spread via these wireless networks have emerged. Based on the epidemic theory, this paper proposes a general model which predicts how a worm propagates through a wireless ad hoc network. Then the differential equations of the model is presented and a necessary condition for worms to spread in these networks is derived, which may be useful in designing a secure wireless ad hoc network. Simulation results show that the process of worm propagation in these wireless networks is sensitive to the deployment density of nodes and the energy consumption of nodes. Therefore, our study can provide insight into deriving a general model to characterize worm propagation in wireless ad hoc networks.