Blocking epidemic propagation in vehicular networks

Abstract

The propagation of software viruses over a vehicular network where vehicles communicate via V2V links can have disastrous effects for the vehicles themselves and the ad hoc network. Here, we propose a simple distributed solution to block virus spreading over a VANET by initiating a negating spreading process that informs vehicles for the presence of infected nodes. We evaluate the proposed approach via simulations using established simulators, and show that the method can significantly limit the percentage of vehicles infected by the virus.