Computer Virus Propagation Based On Asynchronous Cellular Automata

As the threat of computer viruses increasing, in recent years researchers have been utilizing synchronous cellular automata to emulate and forecast their propagation behaviors to assist anti-virus personnel in establishing prevention cure scheme. However, as it is known that, in computer networks, end-to-end delay exists between adjacent nodes, which can hardly be manifested by synchronous cellular automata. On the other hand, the asynchrony in cell-updating makes it easy for asynchronous automata in investigating virus propagation in networks with time delay, which has important research significance.The main contents of this dissertation are listed below:1. The basic concepts of synchronous cellular automata are described, and its drawbacks are pointed out. Then, the basic concepts and definition of asynchronous cellular automata are introduced, and the two cellular automata models are compared.2. Based on the SIS epidemic model, a proper 1D asynchronous cellular automata model is established to emulate virus propagation in computer network with time delay .3. A proper 2D asynchronous cellular automata model is proposed based on the same idea as 1D model.4. Simulations and analysis are given for both 1D and 2D models respectively. It is shown that a hysteresis phenomenon occurs in the process of virus propagation due to time delay, with the overall trend unchanged.