An Epidemic Model of Malware Virus with Quarantine

Abstract

In March of 2018, about 500,000 desktop computers were infected with cryptocurrency mining malware in less than 24 hours. In addition to attacking desktop computers, malware also attacks laptops, tablets, mobile phones. That is, any device connected via the Internet, or a network is at risk of being attacked. In recent years, mobile phones have become extremely popular that places them as a big target of malware infections. In this study, the effectiveness of treatment for infected mobile devices is examined using compartmental modeling. Many studies have considered malware infections which also include treatment effectiveness. However, in this study we examine the treatment effectiveness of mobile devices based on the type of malware infections accrued (hostile or malicious malware). This model considers six classes of mobile devices based on their epidemiological status: susceptible, exposed, infected by hostile malware, infected by malicious malware, quarantined, and recovered. The malware reproduction number, RM, was identied to discover the threshold values for the dynamics of malware infections to become both prevalent or absent among mobile devices. Numerical simulations of the model give insights of various strategies that can be implemented to control malware epidemic in a mobile network.