Modified SIS epidemic model for analysis of virus spread in wireless sensor networks

Abstract

In this paper, a modified SIS epidemic model is proposed to study the dynamics of virus spread in wireless sensor networks. The sensor nodes are attacked by viruses and initially only a small number of nodes are infected. The virus spreads itself to its neighbour nodes by piggybacking on normal data via regular communications. The infected neighbour nodes repeat the process to their respective neighbour nodes. Each sensor node is installed with an antivirus program, which can be periodically refreshed to recover the infective nodes to the susceptible group. Some explicit solutions are derived, which can capture both the spatial and temporal dynamics of the virus spread process. An adjustable virus spread control scheme is developed to effectively restrain the virus outbreak and avoid the network failure. Numerical results and simulations are provided for validation. The proposed model and analysis method can be applied to different types of networks such as wireless networks, computer networks, biomedical networks and social networks.