Maximization of Network Survivability under Malicious and Epidemic Attacks

Due to the Internet's scalability and connectivity, enterprises and organizations increasingly rely upon it to provide services for customers. However, attackers intelligently attack enterprises and organizations through continuous vulnerability exploitation and advanced malware. Recently, assailants have applied the characteristics of fast propagation and epidemic attack infection to launch more deliberate attacks, by using obtained network topology information. This paper examines malicious and epidemic attacks, taking into account various defense mechanisms. Attackers are assumed to only have incomplete information regarding the target network, which raises the difficulty of solving this problem and renders the nature of the problem non-deterministic. Our purpose is to help defenders evaluate average network survivability when making defense-related decisions. This scenario is modeled as a mathematical formulation, and through our simulation results, meaningful and useful defense guidelines are proposed.