Effects of maximum node degree on computer virus spreading in scale-free networks

Abstract

The increase of the use of the Internet networks favors the spread of viruses. In this paper, we studied the spread of viruses in the scale-free network with different topologies based on the Susceptible–Infected–External (SIE) model. It is found that the network structure influences the virus spreading. We have shown also that the nodes of high degree are more susceptible to infection than others. Furthermore, we have determined a critical maximum value of node degree [Formula: see text], below which the network is more resistible and the computer virus cannot expand into the whole network. The influence of network size is also studied. We found that the network with low size is more effective to reduce the proportion of infected nodes.