Mathematics of Infection Diffusion in Wireless Networks

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Research Areas: Network Security

Principal Investigator: Cristina Nita-Rotaru

The spread of malware has the potential to slow down or cripple wireless services. It poses a particularly inimical threat to a multitude of activities ranging across an entire spectrum from social interaction and gaming, to the flow of commerce and informational services, and, at the largest scale, to national security. Current countermeasures are mostly ad hoc and reactive in that they are used to fend off threats as they arrive or are preemptively discovered.

This project aims to develop theoretical foundations for malware control and counter-measure design in wireless networks by drawing from epidemiological analogues in containment or quarantining strategies for limiting the spread of infectious diseases in human society, and game-theoretic models for interactions among opponents. Optimal power control quarantining strategies that curtail and regulate the spread of contagion by exploiting the broadcast property of the wireless medium will be designed, validated analytically and experimentally, and incorporated in networking protocols.

Personnel

Other PIs: Saswati Sarkar (UPenn) Santosh S. Venkatesh (UPenn)

Students: Rahul Potharaju

Keywords: counter-measures, diffusion, Malware, quarantining, wireless