Computer viruses simulation using probabilistic cellular automata

Abstract

In conditions of malware volumes and types growth, which are generally called viruses, the actual problem is simulation of its propagation for taking preventive actions. There are models of computer viruses propagation in form of ordinary differentional equations, but it don’t pay appropriate attention to a space distribution and logical peculiarities, concentrating on a quantitative indexes. In the paper the virus modelling approach based on cellular automata is considered. The new model of virus propagation is proposed. The model differs by its possibility to take into account some features of malware replication, antivirus defence and antivirus influence on infection propagation. The model was applied to some practical examples, the information about infection distribution in the network was obtained as a simulation result. The proposed model can be adapted to different types of malware.