Title: Deriving a closed-form expression for worm-scanning strategies

Authors: Zesheng Chen, Chao Chen, Yubin Li

Addresses: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33174, USA. ' Department of Engineering, Indiana University – Purdue University Fort Wayne, Fort Wayne, IN 46805, USA. ' Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33174, USA

Abstract: This work presents a closed-form expression for characterising the spread of a class of worm-scanning strategies through a mean-field approximation. This expression can both accurately capture the worm propagation speed before the number of infections becomes large and explicitly demonstrate the effects of important parameters such as the vulnerable-host distribution and the worm-scanning strategy. Experimental results verify that the closed-form expression can accurately reflect the mean value of infections over time before the infected hosts become saturated for a wide range of scanning methods including static worm-scanning strategies and self-learning worms.

Keywords: network security; worm scanning strategy; modelling; closed-form expressions; mean-field theory; worm propagation; worm infections; self-learning worms.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSN.2009.027339

International Journal of Security and Networks, 2009 Vol.4 No.3, pp.135 - 144

Published online: 20 Jul 2009 *

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