Anepidemiologicalmodelofvirusspreadandcleanup.pdfVIP

An epidemiological model of virus spread and cleanup Matthew M. Williamson, Jasmin Léveillé Information Infrastructure Laboratory HP Laboratories Bristol HPL-2003-39 February 27th , 2003* E-mail: matthew.williamson@, jasmin.leveille@UMontreal.CA Signature based anti-virus technologies are widely used to fight computer viruses. It is difficult to evaluate such systems because they work in the wild and few companies would be willing to turn them off to be part of a control group! This paper presents a new model of these technologies that can be used to predict and evaluate their effectiveness. The paper will demonstrate how the model can be used to understand the overall system dynamics, calculate expected costs of outbreaks, give insight into the relative importance of parts of the system and suggest ways to improve the technology. It is also used to evaluate new approaches to fighting viruses. * Internal Accession Date Only Approved for External Publication Copyright Hewlett-Packard Company 2003 An epidemiological model of virus spread and cleanup ´ ´ Matthew M. Williamson and Jasmin Leveille HP Labs Bristol, Filton Road, Stoke Gifford, BS34 8QZ, UK matthew.williamson@,jasmin.leveille@UMontreal.CA Abstract