The effect of network topology on the spread of computer viruses: a modelling study

This paper is intended to investigate the effect of network topology on the spread of computer viruses in the presence of removable storage media. For that purpose, a novel network-based computer virus spreading model is proposed. Both theoretically and experimentally, it is shown that, under proper conditions, viruses on a scale-free network would tend to extinction. Experimental results show that either smaller maximum node degree or larger power-law exponent is conducive to the containment of virus spreading. To our knowledge, this is the first time the effect of network topology on virus spreading is investigated in this context.