The Impact of Countermeasure Spreading on the Prevalence of Computer Viruses

How can virus countermeasures such as software patches or warnings be disseminated and installed more efficiently than they are currently so that fewer organizations will suffer virus infection problems? The relative effectiveness of four anti-virus strategies is examined formally using simulations. One of these strategies is the countermeasure spreading strategy (CMS). CMS is based on the idea that computer viruses and countermeasures spread through two separate complex networks -the virus-spreading network and the countermeasure-spreading network, in which a countermeasure acts as a competing species against the computer virus. We find evidence to support the adoption of CMS. CMS is as, or more, effective than other strategies. The proposed CMS reduces the prevalence of computer viruses significantly when the countermeasure-spreading network has properties that favor countermeasures over viruses, or when the countermeasure-spreading rate is higher than the virus-spreading rate. Another advantage is that CMS can be flexibly adapted to different uncertainties in the real world, enabling it to be “tuned” to a greater variety of situations than other strategies.