Modeling virus and anti-virus dynamics in topology-aware networks

Viruses propagating over the Internet can result in significant damage and the loss of network security. On the other hand, the anti-virus process is already a part of the virus spreading process and plays an important role affecting the dynamics of virus spreading. The spreading dynamics of most viruses depend upon the underlying network topology. While much research effort has been made in the development of anti-virus software/tools, the dynamics and propagating model of virus and anti-virus spreading in topology-aware networks is neither well understood, nor thoroughly investigated. To remedy this deficiency, we propose a two-layer small-world network topology to model the spreading characteristics of viruses as coexisting with the anti-virus spreading process. Simulation experiments verify the analytical results in characterizing both the virus and anti-virus spreading dynamics.