Epidemic Propagation in Overlaid Wireless Networks

Abstract

With the emergence of computer worms that can spread over air interfaces, wireless ad hoc and sensor networks can be vulnerable to node compromises even if the deployed network is not connected to the backbone. Depending on the physical topology of the wireless network, even a single infected node can compromise the whole network. In this work, epidemic (e.g. worm) propagation in a static wireless network is studied, where a number of infected mobile nodes are injected over the existing network. It is shown that the epidemic spread threshold and size depend on the physical topology of the underlying static wireless network as well as the mobility model employed by the infected mobile nodes. More specifically, results show that in a fully-connected static wireless network targeted attacks are more effective, whereas for a random topology random attacks can be sufficient to compromise the whole network.