Impact of Quarantine and Distributed Patching on SLBQPS Computer Virus Model

A nonlinear deterministic model for virus spread and patch distribution is proposed and analyzed. The impact of patching, quarantine and patch invalidation is analyzed under parametric conditions and verified by numerical simulations. It has been found that increasing the patching rate or decreasing the patch invalidation rate indicates that the virus has been eradicated from the network. Three basic reproduction numbers, for virus spread without quarantine, with quarantine and for patching are computed. The basic reproduction number for patching, and the quarantine rate play a vital role in eliminating the virus from the network. Accordingly, for and , the disease‐free equilibrium can be achieved and stable. The stability of all possible equilibrium points is proved based on the basic reproduction numbers. Sensitivity analysis of this model is also done for two basic reproduction numbers and . It is observed that the sensitivity indices may vary depending on the values of the other parameters. This analysis provides a helpful insight into which parameters are likely to have the most significant impact on the model. Furthermore, the optimal control strategy for suppressing or eradicating the infection from the network is obtained by using Pontryagin's maximum principle. The optimal strategy is employed for healing latent and breaking‐out nodes and it demonstrates the effect of control parameters through numerical simulations. In most virus propagation models, the combined effect of these parameters was ignored.