On the spread of viruses on the Internet

Noam Berger, Christian Borgs, Jennifer T. Chayes, Amin Saberi

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

156 Scopus citations

Abstract

We analyze the contact process on random graphs generated according to the preferential attachment scheme as a model for the spread of viruses in the Internet. We show that any virus with a positive rate of spread from a node to its neighbors has a non-vanishing chance of becoming epidemic. Quantitatively, we discover an interesting dichotomy: for a virus with effective spread rate λ, if the infection starts at a typical vertex, then it develops into an epidemic with probability λ Θ(log(1/λ)/log log(1/λ)), but on average the epidemic probability is λ Θ(1).

Original languageEnglish
Pages301-310
Number of pages10
StatePublished - 2005
Externally publishedYes
EventSixteenth Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms - Vancouver, BC, United States
Duration: 23 Jan 200525 Jan 2005

Conference

ConferenceSixteenth Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityVancouver, BC
Period23/01/0525/01/05

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'On the spread of viruses on the Internet'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this