Stability analysis of an e-SEIAR model with point-to-group
worm propagation
Fangwei Wang
a,c
, Yunkai Zhang
b,
⇑
, Changguang Wang
c
, Jianfeng Ma
a
a
Shannxi Key Laboratory of Network and System Security, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, China
b
Department of Information Engineering, Shijiazhuang Institute of Railway Technology, Shijiazhuang 050071, China
c
College of Information Technology, Hebei Normal University, Shijiazhuang 050024, China
article info
Article history:
Received 3 May 2013
Received in revised form 13 February 2014
Accepted 31 March 2014
Available online 8 April 2014
Keywords:
Internet worm
Stability analysis
Basic reproduction number
Point-to-group propagation
Endemic equilibrium
abstract
Internet worms have drawn significant attention due to their enormous threats to the
Internet. The main goal of this paper is to explore the interaction dynamics between a
malicious worm and an benign worm, using a mathematical model, namely e-SEIAR. The
e-SEIAR model takes two important network environment factors into consideration:
point-to-group worm propagation mode and benign worms. Furthermore, some related
dynamics properties are studied, along with the analysis of how to combat the worm
prevalence based on the stability of equilibria. Simulation results show that the
performance of our proposed models is effective in combating such worms, in terms of
decreasing the number of hosts infected by the malicious worm and reducing the malicious
worm propagation speed. Based on our simulations, we believe there is great potential
for an effective method to use benign worms to combat malicious worms in some
point-to-group applications.
Ó 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V.
1. Introduction
Internet worms, causing significant damages to the Internet infrastructure, and exploiting vulnerabilities in popular oper-
ating systems and applications, have addressed a serious threat to confidentiality, integrity, and availability of computer
resources on the Internet. Especially, the advent of the Internet of Things (IOT) would make the threat increasingly serious.
Under the high speed network environment, e.g., a single-mode field fiber in the Dallas area could attain 21.7 terabits per
second [1], the diverse propagation way and application environments increasingly give cause for the worms eruption rate
[2]. The emergence of new applications make people communicate and share files with their friends popular, e.g., instant
messengers (IM), Peer-to-Peer file sharing, and online social networks. Microsoft MSN is one of the largest instant messenger
software in the world. Facebook is the largest online social network site in the world [3]. Facebook has more than 800 million
active users and more than 50% of these users log on in any given day [4]. In this type of network environments, there exists
an information sharing pattern where one host would like to push messages to the group members almost at the same time,
namely ‘‘point-to-group’’ (P2G). The most important character of P2G propagation is that the group members can receive the
propagated message or file from the information source simultaneously. In general, members within a group communicate
with each other frequently. Because members within a group might know each other, they mould lack requisite security
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cnsns.2014.03.032
1007-5704/Ó 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V.
⇑
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 311 80786308.
E-mail addresses: fw_wang@hebtu.edu.cn (F. Wang), zhyk@hebtu.edu.cn (Y. Zhang), wangcg@hebtu.edu.cn (C. Wang), jfma@mail.xidian.edu.cn (J. Ma).
Commun Nonlinear Sci Numer Simulat 20 (2015) 897–904
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Commun Nonlinear Sci Numer Simulat
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cnsns