Impact of Network Design on Worm Propagation

In this paper, we simulate the Code Red II and Nimda worms on different enterprise-scale net- works to determine the impact that topology has on worm propagation. A corporate network can be designed to improve security and, as we show, to decrease the propagation rate of worms that use network scanning as a target discovery tech- nique. We also examine the impact that LaBrea- like devices have on propagation rates and com- pare it to the impact of network topology.